


The Speed of Light

by Magical_Destiny



Category: Adam (2009), Charlie Countryman (2013), Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Fusion, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, M/M, Spacedogs, Spacedogs Summer, Spacedogs in actual space, SpacedogsSummer, they're so cute help
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-07-22 15:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7444327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magical_Destiny/pseuds/Magical_Destiny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“My favorite children's book is about a little prince who came to earth from a distant asteroid. He meets a pilot whose plane has crashed in the desert. The little prince teaches the pilot many things, but mainly about love.” </em>
</p>
<p>It turns out the story happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. And, in the way of most ancient stories, a few details were lost along the way. A Spacedogs/Star Wars AU. Or: Spacedogs in actual space.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote Spacedogs. The first time I saw a Spacedogs post on Tumblr, I thought lolwut. Fast forward to me crying over Spacedogs fics and liking Spacedogs fanart and generally flailing all over what is now probably my favorite AU pairing. And here I am writing Spacedogs for the first time. Help. 
> 
> I've been trying to come up with a Hannigram/Star Wars AU for a while now, to no avail...but then it hit me. What could be better suited to actual space than spacedogs? And thus a crossover AU of a crossover AU was born. Ah, fandom. ;) But you know, it's not even a huge stretch. Rose Byrne played Padmé's handmaiden Dormé and Mads Mikkelsen is going to be in the upcoming _Rogue One_. So we're halfway in the _Star Wars_ universe anyway. Now if we could just get Hugh Dancy in there somewhere, my life would be complete. Here's hoping. 
> 
> A couple of quick notes: Nigel says the _Star Wars_ expletive “kriff" because “fuck” doesn’t canonically exist in the universe. I could twist things around and work Nigel’s catch phrase (catchword?) into the universe, but the canonicity, the kriffing canonicity! 
> 
> Also, this is meant to take place pretty much concurrently with _A New Hope_ , and there are mentions of characters like Leia, but no appearances because I want all the “screen time” for Nigel and Adam. ;) 
> 
> Without further ado, here's Spacedogs in actual space.

“Kriff,” cursed Nigel. “Kriff, kriff, _kriff_.” 

He slapped at the altitude indicators, but they kept dropping at nearly the speed of gravity. He was falling, fast. 

The drag of the atmosphere scraped at the hull like sandpaper, shaking the cockpit until Nigel’s teeth rattled. He clenched his jaw shut and surrendered to the need to buckle in. The crash webbing creaked when he stretched it across his chest; he didn’t use it all that much. Of course, he wasn’t usually crashing into the middle of the kriffing desert.

The Imperial patrol had caught him in the middle of what should have been a dead zone according to Darko. He should have been able to camp out in Tatooine’s gravity well unmolested and then jump to hyperspace when the predictable patrols had cleared out. Darko was usually more reliable than this. Kriffing Darko. 

Nigel glared at the instrument panel. The emergency klaxons were filling the cockpit with an unholy racket, multiple indicators flashing red. The Imps had clipped both his hyperdrive _and_ his fuel cells when he’d ignored their hails and tried to jump away from their approach. Stormtroopers couldn’t hit the broad side of a vaporator on a clear day, but Imperial pilots were a different beast altogether. Kriffing Imps. 

Nigel planted his feet in the crash stirrups and pulled on the joystick until the hull of the _Canis_ trembled. But she nosed up, just slightly. Nigel smiled tight and joyless as the altimeter almost leveled out. Maybe he could salvage this crash into something more like an emergency landing. 

A glance at the viewports showed him they were well into the atmosphere, plummeting now through blue sky that was cloudless except for the smoke belching thick from the struggling thrusters. Nigel palmed the releases for the drag fins and the landing gear, winced when the hull whined and shuddered in response. The sand was approaching too fast; Nigel stared at the speedometer and watched as the numbers ticked down too slowly. 

It was times like this that he missed the weight of a death stick against his lips, the smoke a sweet burn in his throat. Of course, it was his time on this this thrice-damned world that had forcibly broken him of the habit. He blinked hard against the memories and chewed his lip to focus. 

Tugging on the joystick for all he was worth, he forced the _Canis_ into a diagonal descent that finally approached horizontal and a little more speed bled away. He eyed the rock formations a few thousand yards ahead. It wasn’t enough space, but it would have to do. 

Sand spattered against the hull as he nearly scraped the ground. He eased down until he _did_ scrape the ground, sand hissing and burning against the metal. There was a sickening crunch as the landing gear broke away, but Nigel barely winced. He was staring between the speedometer and the jutting spires of rock ahead. 

“Come on, come on…kriff it, _come on_.” 

The ship squealed and bucked against the sand and the occasional protruding rock, but she slowed. There was still a good stretch of empty sand between him and certain death when she stopped altogether. Nigel breathed a sigh of relief; it shifted into a dismal groan when the engine stuttered and died. His ship was scrap — the Jawas would take what was left by morning. 

He unbuckled the crash webbing, stuffed his short-range commlink into an inner pocket, and added water, electrobinoculars, and a portable nav computer to his satchel. His only holo was already safe in the pocket over his heart. When he couldn’t find anything else to salvage or save, he glanced mournfully around the cockpit. “Nice knowing you,” he muttered to the corpse of his ship. When he brushed his hand across the bulkhead on his way to the airlock, he told himself it was to keep his balance. 

The suns were setting when he emerged, sinking almost to his ankles in the sand. He stared long and hard at the distant horizon where the faint twinkle of a city beckoned him. A glance at the nav computer told him what he’d been hoping: he was just a couple of klicks from Mos Eisley. A slight wind rose up, flinging sand until his forearms and cheeks stung. He exchanged the nav computer for a pair of goggles and slid out of his jacket to wrap it around his neck and head. He sighed heavily and pulled his right foot free of the sand to take his first step forward. 

“I kriffing hate Tatooine.” 

===

Night had fallen by the time the loose sand of the dunes gave way to the packed dirt streets of Mos Eisley under Nigel’s aching feet. He hated the teeming port city, but for once he was happy to arrive. He’d heard the song of a few too many krayt dragons as the moons rose. Tatooine looked arid and dead, but it was home to a number of creatures big enough to eat humans and happy enough to do so. Nigel shook the excess dust and sand from his jacket and slid into the sleeves, grateful for the warmth as the night turned cold, and glad of the reprieve from the harsh wind. Tatooine’s cities were small, overpopulated, and existed mainly to facilitate the criminal activities of the Hutts, but at least the squat buildings provided wind cover. 

The square buildings with domed rooftops crowded together along the wide dirt boulevards, colorless in the dark. Of course, they’d be just as colorless in the light of the suns. Tatooine produced nothing but bleached sandstone and clay, shades of beige and brown that made looking at the landscape and the cities feel like a very specific sort of color blindness. In the faint glow of the few irregularly placed streetlights, it looked even more depressing than usual.

Nigel smelled the entertainment district before he saw it. Smoke curled from every cantina, carrying the mouth-watering, if slightly burned, scent of bantha steaks. The faint hum of vaporators blended with the raucous laugher and loud conversations of the spacers, moisture farmers, and off-duty Imps who crowded into the cantinas every night for food and liquor. Aside from the occasional podrace or Hutt-sponsored execution, there wasn’t much entertainment on this sand-blasted planet. 

Nigel wove through the drunken crowds, skipping past the strip of higher class cantinas — or what passed for higher class on Tatooine. The brilliant signs stained the swirling smoke from the kitchens with reds and blues and yellows, the only slashes of color in the dark. Nigel passed them all by, the lights fading into dingier signs and less appetizing smells. The crowds here were just as loud, but there was a dangerous edge in the noise. This was not the place to start up light conversation or to accidentally knock over a drink. Tiny, black-edged craters surrounded most of the doorways like dark constellations. Burns from blaster bolts. 

If it weren’t for the ghostly host of bad memories this planet summoned up, Nigel would feel right at home. 

He’d nearly reached the end of the strip of cantinas when he found the sign he was looking for and ducked through the open doorway. The cantina was every bit as dirty and overcrowded as Nigel remembered, full of patrons from every planet this side of the Core, all hazed with the curling smoke of death sticks and the faint smell of spice. There were plenty of other smells Nigel didn’t care to analyze; they all combined to form something sickly and stale. He hustled to the bar to find a drink strong enough to overwhelm his senses. 

“Kriff me, is that you, Nigel?”

Darius Darklighter, known to the patrons of his cantina as Darko, was up to his elbows in drink orders behind the bar. His voice just managed to carry over the heads of a Rodian, and Ithorian, and a band of Twi’leks crowded in front of him. Darko was handing out drinks, so it took him a long moment to appear in front of Nigel and clap him on the shoulder. “What are you doing planetside? I thought—“

“Yeah,” Nigel interrupted sharply. “I thought, too. But the Imps forced me down and my ship is scrap in the Wastes.”

Darko blinked. “You waited at the coordinates I gave you?”

Nigel nodded, the blank exhaustion of the day tugging at him in a thousands aches and scrapes that seemed to awaken the moment he stood still. 

Darko swore sharply in Huttese. “That mangy kriff. I have a source at the Imperial Embassy, but apparently I need to get a new one. I’m sorry, Nigel.” He looked sincere, kriff it all to hell. Maybe it was dehydration coupled with standing too long in the heat, but for a fleeting moment, Nigel saw Darko as he remembered him, years back. He’d never said a word when Nigel wandered in out of the punishing heat, slipping him drinks and adding them to a tab that never seemed to come due. They’d never talked much, so maybe the past didn’t quite make them friends, but it sure as hell made them something. 

Nigel sighed and waved off the apology. “Sometimes the universe just kriffs you over,” he muttered. Darko nodded and put two mostly clean tumblers of Corellian whiskey on the bar. 

“I’ll drink to that,” Darko agreed and downed it all in one swallow. Nigel followed suit, savoring the rich burn. Darko refilled his glass. “You got a place to stay?”

Nigel shook his head. “Not yet.” 

“There’s an extra room in the back. My brother used to use it when he came by.” Darko paused, sneering. “Kriffing idiot.” 

It was one of Mos Eisley's worst kept secrets that Darko's brother Biggs had run off to join the Rebellion. Of course, on the Outer Rim, the news barely even made waves. No one cared much for the distant Rebellion, not even the Sand Troopers. The twin suns cooked the spirit right out of every stratum of society, occupying forces included. The Hutts controlled most of the commerce, legal and illegal, and the Empire kept itself to patrols and perfunctory control that occasionally manifested in minor raids and arrests. Everyone was happy.

Except poor kriffs like Nigel who were just trying to make a dishonest credit or two and got caught in the middle. Nigel knocked back his second whiskey. 

Darko watched him. “You're different now,” he said at last. “Sad.” Someone down the bar was gesturing for a refill; Darko ignored it. “Take the room, Nigel. Just till you get a new ship. I owe you for the bad intel.”

Nigel nodded. Maybe it was the whiskey or the aching chorus of bruises all over his body, but he suddenly felt so tired he could have dropped his head on the bar and fallen asleep right there. Darko was still looking at him. Nigel could almost feel the kriffing platitude coming like a lightning bolt. 

“Biggs is an idiot _sleemo_ with a lot of big ideas, most of them stupid…but he used to say that sadness is what happens to anger when it dies. It fossilizes, gets hard and cold. Just don’t—” Darko sighed, an exasperated sound. “Don’t let that be you. Okay?”

Nigel was barely listening. The holo in his breast pocket felt heavy enough to crack his chest. In place of the haze of smoke around him, he saw the bleached bantha bones that haunted the Jundland Wastes, monuments to death and the merciless march of time. 

More than what was left of Gabi. 

Nigel clenched his fists until they trembled; the scar on his side tingled with phantom pain. But Nigel only shrugged at Darko, pointedly dismissing his concern until the increasingly insistent waving down the bar pulled him away. He refilled Nigel’s tumbler one last time before he went. 

Nigel knocked it back, stared into the empty glass as his eyes grew heavy and the ache of his body drew farther away. Maybe kriffing Biggs had a point. 

Because if anger turned to sadness, like bones buried in the endless Wastes, then Nigel was a kriffing graveyard. 

===

Nigel woke up angry, hungover, and cursing under his breath. The only windows were nearly skylights, crescent-shaped openings spaced at wide intervals along the ceiling to admit the glare of the twin suns. Nigel’s glare was almost as punishing, but he sighed and pushed his foul mood away. The guest room Darko had offered was really more of a closet with a pallet on the floor, but it was still a far sight better than any of the inns that were in his kriffing price range.

It wasn’t in his nature to be grateful — the universe and everyone in it usually kriffed him over without remorse — but he decided to make the attempt. Nigel hauled himself up and headed for the refresher. He emerged in a fair mood considering he was a man with no ship who was stranded on the burning hellhole planet he hated most in the universe. 

Darko was standing in the hall. 

“Look at you. Back to your usual gorgeous self.” Darko’s stupid voice and idiot smile tanked Nigel’s mood again. 

“Caf,” he grunted, halfway between a request and a demand. Darko pointed down the passageway that led back into the cantina. 

“Tell the droid I sent you,” Darko said, and clapped him on the shoulder. 

The cantina was all but full when Nigel deactivated the barrier guarding the living quarters and pushed aside the curtain beyond it. A glance at his wrist chrono confirmed that it was mid-morning. Always happy hour in Mos Eisley. 

He gave the other patrons a wide berth, dropping himself onto the stool at the farthest corner of the bar. The droid bartender whirred to intercept him immediately. “Good morning,” it said, too much cheer in its programmed tone. “What can I—“

“Caf,” Nigel growled, grinding his palm into his eye in the vain hope of stifling the pain behind it. 

“That will be—“

“I’m with Darko, so skip the kriffing bill.” 

The droid took the interruption in stride, its processor humming faintly. “Right away.” It trundled over to the aged caf machine, leaving Nigel to stare at the stained wall and wonder whether the local junk dealers had any ships worth a kriff. He eventually realized a mug of steaming caf had materialized in front of him, and took a scalding mouthful, grimacing at the burn. The buzz of the stimulants hitting his system made it kriffing worth it. He slid his nav computer out of his pocket and began the tedious search for nearby junk dealers.

“Excuse me?” One voice raised above the rest of the crowd, tight with tension and slightly too loud for the enclosed space. The droid answered and Nigel steadfastly filtered out every surrounding sound as he alternated his focus between the screen in front of him and the caf in his hand. 

“Excuse me?” came the voice again, beside him this time. Nigel ground his teeth and took a long sip of his caf. “I’m looking for a man called Darko,” the voice continued anyway. “I was told to find him. The droid said he’s not available, but that you’re with him. Can you direct me to him? Please.” 

Please, he said. Kriffing _please_. Nigel set his mug down and wondered how someone on the Outer Rim, on _this_ planet, in _this_ town could manage to sound so politely earnest. He turned toward the stranger. 

And blinked.

Standing just beside him, in the middle of a seedy cantina with stains on the walls and a packed dirt floor, was a young human male who could only have been from the Core. He almost gleamed in this crowd, dressed in a fitted white tunic, a dusky blue cloak draped across his chest and shoulders. He was a handsome kid to top it all off, thick dark curls and a damn pretty face. The sight of someone so obviously well off in this quarter of the city would have made Nigel laugh if it hadn’t been for the young man’s expression. He was staring somewhere between Nigel’s shoulder and his chin, his mouth set unhappily. When his eyes darted up to touch Nigel’s just briefly, Nigel noted two things: he was worried; his eyes were a startling shade of blue. 

“Can you help?” the man asked again, and this time, looking him in the face, Nigel could see how deep his distress ran, leaking out in the nervous clench of his fists and the slight tremble of his lips. 

_Kriff me,_ Nigel thought. “He’s usually here in the afternoon,” he said instead. “And all night. What do you want?” 

“I can’t be here in the evening,” the man answered, his shoulders drawing taut under the cloak. “I need some help getting offworld,” he continued anyway, still not meeting Nigel’s eyes. “A Rodian called Greedo said Darko was the one to talk to.”

The scoff escaped before Nigel could think better of it. Greedo was a lying kriff who was going to end up as a smear on somebody’s boot one of these days. If he’d sent the kid here, it was because he was bad news. Looking at him, though, all but trembling like a leaf in the wind, Nigel suspected that whatever trouble was following the kid wasn’t his fault. 

But he’d been played for a sucker before. 

The kid was worrying the edge of his cloak between his fingertips with impressive force. Sleek, elegant lines and unpatterned cloth — if Nigel had to bet, he’d say the style was Alderaanian. Not that he’d ever seen an Alderaanian on Tatooine. They were a smart bunch on that planet, and knew better than to abandon paradise for hell. All except this kid, apparently. 

“I don’t know whether Darko can help,” Nigel admitted slowly, frowning when the kid wilted in front of him. He could feel the kid’s building wave of distress like the tremor in the air before a vicious sandstorm. His lips twisted in irritation, but he couldn’t commit to it. Never let yourself get involved in other people’s problems, he reminded himself. But the kid looked close to tears and Nigel’s next words were dragged out of him against his will. “But tell me what you need.” 

“I need a pilot,” the kid answered, plain and straightforward except for the fact that he wouldn’t meet Nigel’s eyes. But that seemed to be his way. It gave Nigel a chance to study him carefully; he didn’t see any signs of deception. Alderaanians were generally considered a trustworthy bunch, for whatever useless stereotypes were worth. Nigel cursed himself for a kriffing fool, but he couldn’t quite make himself walk away. 

“A pilot,” Nigel muttered. “If I had a kriffing ship, I’d volunteer. I’m not sure—“

“I have a ship,” the kid interrupted, his nervous hands going still at last. “I just need a pilot. Would you like the job? I can pay.” 

The screen of the nav computer powered off automatically after too much idle time; Nigel shoved it back into his pocket. This might actually be a viable deal. “I don’t — kriff. Where are you headed?”

“Alderaan,” said the kid, sounding eager to the point of pain. Nigel could sympathize entirely. “I’m ready to leave this place.” 

“I’ll kriffin’ bet you are. You the only passenger?” The kid nodded, his curls bouncing against his forehead. He couldn’t have been here long, Nigel noted. His skin was still smooth and pale. “What’s the catch?” he asked, pulling his focus back to the kid’s eyes, though eye contact still wasn’t forthcoming. 

“Catch?” the kid asked, his brow twitching tight before it smoothed again. “Oh, you mean the difficulty. I need to avoid any Imperial encounters. They’ve been targeting Alderaanian vessels recently. Political problems that stem from the suspected sympathies of the Viceroy and the Princess. I could explain it all in depth, but not in public.” 

His voice was unusual, Nigel thought. Not inexpressive, but a little flat, like he was reciting information instead of conversing. Not that it kriffing mattered. He couldn’t ferry this strange kid to Alderaan, he needed to get a ship of his own and get out of here. Alderaan was great for artists and politicians and wealthy vacationers, but they weren’t exactly the affordable used ships capitol of the galaxy. He couldn’t afford anything there, not even if the kid paid twice what his services were worth. He sighed. 

“I’d love to, kid, but…”

“You need a ship, right? If you take me safely to Alderaan, you can have mine.”

Well, Nigel thought, never look a gift eopie in the mouth. “You’ve got a kriffing deal,” he said quickly. He wasn’t sure how Alderaanians sealed business deals, but the kid stuck out his hand so Nigel shook it. His skin was soft, but the grip was firm, if brief. His hand disappeared under the cloak again. 

“What’s your name, kid?” Nigel prodded, not quite able to contain his tone of wonder. The kid had appeared just in time to get him out of this sun-baked hellhole. Nigel had been given to flights of fancy once upon a time, back before any images that weren’t hard reality had been purged from him under the blistering heat of the Tatooinian suns. But now, in this kriffing cantina in the middle of kriffing Mos Eisley, he thought the kid looked almost angelic, white tunic refracting the sun spilling through the windows. The flash of piercing blue when his eyes finally met Nigel’s only supported the ridiculous vision. 

The kid smiled faintly, but it was gone again in an instant, his eyes falling back to Nigel’s shoulder as he answered in his peculiar tone. “I’m Adam Raki.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU to everyone who left kudos and commented! The fact that I'm continuing is a direct result of those comments. I thought I might be the only person excited about a Star Wars/Spacedogs crossover, but I was very happy to be proved wrong. :D

Adam’s ship, the _Stargazer_ , was berthed near the edge of the city. There was no central landing facility for two very good reasons. One, the city had grown in fits and starts, sprawling farther into the Great Mesra Plateau like a twisting vine impervious to the heat, spawning landing bays like bunches of grapes dropped from each stem. Two, the Hutts didn’t care to subject a central facility to the tender attentions of the Empire. A single hangar system could be monitored quite effectively. Hundreds, not so much. Nigel generally liked the anonymity of landing in a city honeycombed with ships’ berths. 

Of course, you had to have a kriffing ship in the first place. 

Nigel banished the sudden image of the _Canis_ , probably nothing more than a metallic skeleton now, stripped for parts and glistening in the heat. Beside him, Adam was rattling off the specs of the _Stargazer_ as he led the way up the boarding ramp. It was a modestly sized space cruiser, _Consular_ -class. Old as dirt, but in excellent condition, from the look of it. Corellian make, pre-Empire. 

“It’s a very old ship as I’m sure you can tell,” Adam said, although the interior was so clean and polished that it was almost blinding. “I’ve made some modifications. The engine is entirely new, along with the hyperdrive and the shield generator. No weapons, though. You understand.”

Nigel nodded. Alderaanians were a bunch of kriffing pacifists. 

“I’ll give you a tour,” Adam offered, his eyes fixed on an unremarkable patch of the gleaming white bulkhead. “We’ll start with the cockpit.”

He led the way from the boarding ramp through a short passage that opened onto a conference room with a long, curved table and several chairs, all brilliant white. There were three metal doors beyond the table; Adam palmed the release for the middle one. A claustrophobic passage funneled them into a spacious cockpit furnished with two large seats for the pilot and co-pilot and two passenger seats behind. The instruments were all new, but Nigel thought some of the paneling looked original. He wondered whether the ship had seen any action in the days of the Republic. Probably not — consular ships were almost exclusively used as diplomatic transports. 

There wasn’t much to see beyond the forward viewport, just the nearly identical browns of the dirt floor below and the sandstone wall ahead. Nigel craned forward until he could just see a patch of blue sky above. He was already eager to guide the ship up and away from the hangar and out into the stars. He glanced at Adam beside him. 

“You said the hyperdrive’s new?” Nigel asked. 

Adam blinked and fixated on the hyperdrive levers on the instrument panel. “Yes,” he replied. “Just a Class Three, but it will do the job. Space travel began with no hyperdrive capabilities after all. The very first spacers had to utilize various cryogenic sleep technologies, some very rudimentary, to complete the voyages. And many of those ended in catastrophic failure in the early days, as exploratory voyages led straight through planets and stars.”

Nigel furrowed his brow. “You a professor, kid?” 

Adam’s eyes drifted almost to Nigel’s, fixing somewhere over his shoulder instead. His frown involved his entire face, brows twitching down, lips slack and then pursed. He shook his head minutely. “I’m thirty standard years old,” he said, with a lilt that almost made the statement a question. “Not a kid. And not a professor, either. Was I telling you too much about hyperspace travel? I do that sometimes. Not just about hyperspace — about everything.”

Nigel stared. Before he could remotely decide how to respond, Adam plowed ahead, his shoulders tight, nervous energy vibrating in his voice. 

“I’m neuroatypical. I have trouble with reading faces and understanding the finer points of emotional interaction,” Adam began. His words were rapid and rote; he’d memorized this explanation, Nigel realized. He wondered how often he had to repeat it. How often people met him with blank stares — or laughter. Nigel’s fists clenched reflexively. “There are names for the symptoms and struggles I have,” Adam continued, “but I don’t always like to use them. On Alderaan, we don’t label people who are atypical like most of the galaxy does. We view it all as a spectrum of how life manifests, and education and arts and the job market are all geared accordingly. All you really need to know is that sometimes I may say or do confusing things, but I don’t mean to offend. You can tell me if I offend you and I’ll try to adjust.” 

Adam paused expectantly. _Waiting for my kriffing verdict_ , Nigel realized after a moment. He wondered what the usual response was, and something pulled tight in his chest. 

“You’re fine, kid,” he said, ignoring the feeling. “I’ve seen a lot of kriffed up people in my day, and trust me, you’re not one of them.”

Adam’s entire body loosened, like he’d been pulled tighter than whatever-the-kriff Nigel had been feeling. He nodded, his blue eyes flashing up to Nigel’s for just a moment. 

“Thank you,” Adam replied. He straightened up again, speaking solemnly when he continued. “But please do understand what I’ve told you. And ask questions if you have them.”

Nigel was silent a moment; he didn’t know anyone who invited questions. In his experience, people were usually too busy or too deceptive to invite that kind of scrutiny — or that kind of intimacy. He let his curiosity rise. 

“You don’t lie,” Nigel said. 

Adam frowned again. “Is that a question?”

“Just something I noticed.” 

The frown relaxed, Adam’s pale skin smoothing again. “Oh. No, I don’t lie. I don’t like lying. I have very little filter between what I think and what I say.” 

Straightforward, matter of fact. Nigel felt like a man who’d wandered out of the smog of Nar Shaddaa and found a pocket of pure oxygen. His smile surprised him when it surfaced unexpectedly. 

“Well, are you a criminal?” he asked, smirking now. It occurred to him too late that Adam might have trouble interpreting the question as a joke. 

Adam’s frown was back with a vengeance, and he met Nigel’s eyes, holding his gaze fleetingly as he spoke. “What? No. Why — why would you think—“ The furrowed look, Nigel realized, his eyebrows drawn tight and cheeks pinched, only accentuated how remarkable Adam’s eyes were. It was a good thing the kid didn’t make eye contact more often. He’d get a lot more attention than he wanted. 

Adam looked away again, his hands working nervously; Nigel shook off his distraction and hurried to explain himself. “Relax, kid. All I meant was that if you’re not a criminal, you don’t _need_ to lie. You’re better off that way. People treat lies like tools they can pull out and use,” he muttered darkly. “But lies are weapons—they injure people. And they’re pointed on both sides.”

“That’s a metaphor,” Adam said, nodding carefully. “I don’t always do well with metaphors.”

“Well,” Nigel replied. “You got that one, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I guess I did.” 

Nigel couldn’t quite tell whether Adam was pleased or confused or both, so he decided to steer away from metaphors for the time being. Besides, he _did_ have work to do. He dropped himself into the padded pilot’s chair, swiveling a little as he glanced over the sprawling instrument panel. State of the art set-up. He should be able to manage without a co-pilot just fine. 

“You got clearance to leave?” he asked over his shoulder. 

“Yes,” Adam answered. “I’ve been cleared to leave anytime today or tomorrow.”

“Good. I’ll just need a little time to make the calculations.” Nigel powered on the shipboard nav computer and tapped a few initial instructions. 

Adam hovered behind him. “You aren’t going to travel by an established hyperspace route?” It took Nigel a moment to identify the tremor in his voice as anxiety. Kriff if he knew how to defuse it. He dragged his hand through his hair, half to shove it out of his face and half to buy himself time to think. Adam’s anxiety pressed against him like a collection of vibroblades. 

“The lanes I have in mind _are_ established,” Nigel said at last. “Just not by the Republic.”

“Smugglers’ routes?” Adam asked, flat and unreadable. Nigel studied the nav computer, nodded over the first plotted jump, and tapped out a second destination.

“It’ll keep you clear of the Empire,” he clarified, and waited for Adam’s reaction. 

The vibroblades receded. Nigel realized he’d been holding his breath.

“That’s acceptable,” Adam declared, leaning toward the nav computer. The screen painted a blue glow over his face. “May I please see the calculations before we leave?”

“Sure thing, kid,” Nigel answered, and watched the progress bar as the nav computer processed his data.

Adam’s correction was cool and perfunctory, but not offended. “Not kid. My name is Adam.” 

===

Night had fallen beyond the forward viewport when Nigel finished the arduous calculations for their series of jumps. Taking the back roads of the galaxy was as labyrinthine as the most winding podracing tracks, if not quite as foolhardy. At least on smugglers’ hyperspace routes, your fellow travelers weren’t trying to kill or disqualify you. 

For the most part, anyway. 

Nigel rolled his shoulders back, groaning in relief when his spine cracked loudly. He copied the finished calculations onto a pocket-sized datapad and went in search of Adam. 

He wasn’t in the sleeping quarters (a low-ceilinged hall with a row of cramped bedrooms, all dark and empty) or the galley (a space so orderly and spotless it hurt Nigel’s eyes) or the conference room. The boarding ramp was sealed shut when he approached it, and the adjacent terminal assured him it hadn’t been opened since their arrival. 

“Where the kriff—,” Nigel muttered, too tired to finish the sentiment. He paced aimlessly down the hall until he felt a warm breath of dry desert air curling through the artificially chilled atmosphere of the _Stargazer._ Nigel glanced up and caught a glimpse of the velvet black of the sky. The upper hatch was open. 

“Adam?” Nigel called to the stars. 

“Up here,” the reply drifted down. “Come up, if you want. Tatooine has a unique view of the stars.”

Nigel smiled without quite knowing why. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he hadn’t looked at the stars, really _looked_ , in years. He hauled himself up the durasteel ladder bolted to the bulkhead, sliding from clinical white lights and recycled air into the long shadows and symphony of sounds that made up Mos Eisley nights. The night air felt warm only by comparison to the filtered, chilled air below; Nigel knew he’d be shivering if he stayed outside for more than a few minutes. Adam was perched cross-legged in from of the curving dish of the sensor array, the massive ion turbines rising high behind him. He’d wrapped himself in his blue cloak like a blanket. 

“Do you have our course set?” Adam asked, staring at the sky. Nigel stepped carefully over the metallic seams of the hull and passed him the datapad before dropping down beside him. Adam studied their course solemnly as Nigel turned his attention to the stars. He’d forgotten how bright the stars were here. Thousands of brilliant shards of light, like diamonds gleaming through an expanse of black water, out of reach but not out of sight.

“These calculations are good,” Adam declared, setting the datapad down gently between them. His arm slid back into the folds of his cloak, locking out the cold. “Very safe, even if the route is winding and long.”

“Better for going undetected,” Nigel explained, still staring upward. The longer he looked, the more he saw different shades in the stars. “Kriffing Imps patrol known hyperspace routes like the Empire depends on it.” 

“It probably does,” Adam observed, looking up again. “Yes, you’re right. This is a good plan. The light of the city is insignificant enough that it doesn’t interfere with visibility,” he continued without pausing. “You can see Geonosis from here. And Bothawui.”

“Where?” Nigel asked, searching the pinpoints of light above. They all looked almost the exact kriffing same, but some were planets, some suns, some dying stars. A few flashing streaks were either distant meteors or ships breaking the atmosphere. 

Adam pointed toward a large spot of light that was faintly reddish. “Geonosis,” he declared with quiet authority. His finger traced a path to the other end of the sky, to a much dimmer pinpoint. “Bothawui.” He curled back in on himself, eyes pointed upward, but Nigel thought his expression looked far away. “Tatooine has many fascinating stories around their constellations. I need to read more about them. I only know a few of the stories.” 

Nigel knew many, many stories about Tatooine’s view of the stars. There were heroes and warriors and tricksters all painted in the sky, immortalized above them all. He remembered the tales well. 

But he also remembered shades of flickering firelight caressing Gabi’s face as she leaned close and whispered the stories, injecting the words with hope beyond the tiny sandstone room where they lay, waiting for the twin suns to rise. 

Nigel didn’t feel like telling any of those stories. 

“How’d you end up so far from the Core?” he asked Adam instead, willing the phantom firelight to fade into the fathomless dark above. 

“I had Harlan with me when I first came here,” Adam answered.

“Who?” 

“A friend. He’s been detained at the Mos Eisley garrison.”

Adam’s tone was too flat and controlled for an announcement so kriffing dire. Nigel was indignant for him. “ _Kriff_ , what for?”

Adam’s gaze slid down at last, the reflected starlight fading from his eyes as he stared at the shadowed hull instead. “I don’t know. I tried to find out, but they wouldn’t talk to me. They threatened to arrest me, too, but when they pulled my identification, they saw that I’m neuroatypical and that I live in the royal palace in Aldera. I’m not sure which fact deterred them more.”

Nigel tried to imagine the kriffhead Imps _not_ arresting somebody and came up blank. It wasn’t something he’d seen before and he doubted anybody but Adam had. “You’re kriffing lucky, you know that?”

Adam shook his head, his profile going taut as he frowned lightly. “I don’t think so. I need to get home so I can arrange for Harlan’s release. They won’t listen to me here. I sent messages back home, but I haven’t heard anything yet.” Nigel finally heard a trickle of worry in his voice. “It’s strange.”

He didn’t have any answers for the questions troubling Adam, so he opted for distraction instead. “What’s a kid like you doing on this rock in the first place?”

“That’s classified,” Adam replied automatically. His profile relaxed slightly; he glanced in Nigel’s general direction, but his eyes didn’t raise past Nigel’s chin. “Sorry,” he added. 

Nigel stared. “Are you kriffing kidding me?”

“No,” Adam answered. No hesitation or scrambling or doubt. Kriff it all to hell, Nigel believed him. He stepped away from that particular gundark’s nest — temporarily at least. But he was determined to get _some_ answers tonight. 

“You live in the palace,” Nigel said slowly. “In Aldera.” 

“Yes,” Adam answered with no pretense or pride. His eyes were speckled in starlight again; Nigel wondered if he was searching the stars for his world. 

“What are you? A prince?”

Adam’s brows knit together tightly and his eyes flashed to touch Nigel’s for a fleeting moment. “You can live in a palace without being royalty,” he answered, sounding like a slightly stern lecturer. “I’m not part of the royal family.” His face and his tone loosened, but he didn’t turn away from Nigel. “The government of Alderaan is actually very unique in their combination of elected officials and hereditary monarchy. Alderaan currently has a queen, a prince consort, and a princess. Although the prince consort is usually called by his executive title of viceroy. So you see,” he concluded, “I can’t be the prince. Because there isn’tone.” 

Nigel shrugged. “You live in the palace,” he argued, fighting a grin. 

“Because my father tends the gardens,” Adam countered. “Or he did, before he died. I helped him sometimes. Now I work with the security team, upgrading the systems. Princess Leia talks to me about the security systems sometimes. And the stars. Aldera has one of the most advanced observatories in the galaxy.”

Nigel contradicted him cheerfully. “As far as I’m concerned, if you live in a palace, you’re a prince.”

“That’s inaccurate, Nigel…” Adam protested. “Wait. You’re joking, aren’t you?” 

Nigel did grin, now. “Yes, your majesty.”

Adam’s smile was as gradual and brilliant as a sunrise. He laughed lightly, shaking his head. “The correct address would be ‘your highness,’” he corrected, “But it’s irrelevant because I’m not —“

Nigel stood up before Adam could finish. “I’m going below, your highness. We have an early start in the morning.” 

Adam was still shaking his head, but his smile didn’t fade when he turned back to the stars. “I’ll see you in the morning, Nigel.” 

===

Nigel was almost reluctant to leave his sleeping quarters when his wrist chrono chimed a stringent good morning. His quarters were every bit as cramped as he’d expected on an aged, non-luxury diplomatic vessel built for practicality over comfort. But the bed was soft and clean, the walls were soothing white and faintly curved, and there was a private adjoining refresher. All in all, it was the nicest place Nigel had slept in a long, long time. He gave the room a lingering look before forcing himself into motion. They had a long few days ahead. 

Nigel had the engines primed and the course of their first jump set long before the heat of the day set in. The suns were still just a glow on the horizon, barely hinting at the sweltering force they’d spill over the city in the next few hours. Nigel was glad he’d be gone by then. Well, assuming Adam ever decided to grace the cockpit with his presence. He watched the creeping rays of the suns crawl with slow progress toward the empty passenger seats behind him. When they were straining at the edge of the cushioned seats, he went to find Adam.

Nigel’s employer and passenger was seated primly in the galley, wearing a white tunic and trousers, his ankles crossed and tucked beneath his chair. He stared fixedly at the meal in front of him as he ate, as though concentration was a key component of enjoying it. Hell, maybe it was. Nigel barely tasted his own meals anymore. There were always too many things to think about. Or to try _not_ to think about. 

He paused in the doorway, studying Adam’s meal with curiosity. It was some sort of pasta — short, curved noodles with a pale cheese sauce. It looked appetizing despite the fact that Nigel didn’t have much experience with cheese. Tatooine’s blue cheese was renowned for its low cost, not its quality. And almost everywhere else in the kriffing galaxy had turned cheese into an art form that could only be enjoyed by people with money. Adam’s meal looked simple, though. Simple enough to be enjoyed for what it was and not for what it cost. 

Not that Nigel had much experience with either sensation. 

Adam’s blue eyes stood out in stark contrast against the sterile silver and white kitchen when he glanced briefly up at Nigel. “Good morning,” he greeted quietly. He gestured at the plate in front of him. “You can have some if you want. We’re stocked enough to eat for days.” 

“I’ll eat later,” Nigel answered, ignoring his empty stomach for now. Getting the kriff off this planet was an urge that had been burning hotter every moment since he’d set foot in the sands of the Wastes. “We’d better get going. You ready for takeoff?”

Adam’s grip on his spoon tightened ever so slightly; a fine line appeared between his eyebrows. Nigel felt himself tense in response. “I just need to finish this,” Adam answered. “I have a routine, and it’s very important that I stick to it, especially when we get into deep space and the timelessness that entails. I need the structure.” He took another bite of his pasta and chewed evenly. His eyes flashed up to Nigel’s. “Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll join you. Then we can go. I’d rather not be sitting down here with a bowl of semisolid food in my hands when you jump to lightspeed. Imagine the mess, Nigel.” 

Nigel swore the kid’s eyes were twinkling. 

“Is that a joke, your highness?”

“Adam,” the kid corrected, but not unkindly. “And yes, it was.” He smiled down at his plate as Nigel laughed. 

Nigel leaned against the doorway, watching as Adam finished his meal in a few smooth bites. It was an almost musical process, the ordered rhythm of the spoon, followed by the scrape of the chair and the hum of the dishwashing unit as Adam powered it on. Nigel had lived in a world of explosive chaos for so long that something as quiet and controlled as Adam was strange and captivating. He had to force himself to turn around and head for the cockpit instead of lingering in doorways like a kriffing nerfherder. He wondered if Adam felt relaxed by his careful routines and a life of control. Or maybe he felt like a prisoner. Order and chaos — either one could be a heavy pair of stuncuffs to wear. 

He’d only just settled into the pilot’s seat when Adam’s soft steps echoed up the corridor behind him. To Nigel’s surprise, the kid settled into the co-pilot’s seat without hesitation, fastening the safety belt and pulling it smooth and tight. “Alright, Nigel,” he said simply. 

Nigel didn’t need to be told twice. He palmed the comm, waiting until the hiss of static resolved into a monotonous voice inquiring in Huttese. The voice gave way to Basic after hearing Nigel’s voice. He drummed his fingers against the instrument panel as they waited for confirmation of a clear takeoff. Nigel was fairly certain they wouldn’t have to wait long; the surrounding ships’ berths were either very quiet or entirely empty. Either way, they shouldn’t be dealing with kriffing traffic. His stare gained heat with each passing second of comm static. “How kriffing hard is it to work early morning atmosphere traffic?” he muttered venomously. 

“They’re just doing their job, Nigel,” Adam answered. “Sometimes monitoring traffic patterns can be involved work. But we’ll be on our way soon. I promise.”

It was an odd thing to do, offering quiet promises to someone who was impatient and angry. A very odd thing. But Nigel’s shoulders relaxed and his fingers stopped drumming. The comm crackled before he could wonder why. 

“ _Stargazer_ , you are cleared for takeoff,” the flat voice answered. “Thank you for visiting Mos Eisley and please come again.” 

Nigel deliberately cut communication before he answered, “Not kriffing likely.” Beside him, Adam’s lips twitched into a smile. 

The _Stargazer_ maneuvered like a dream, gliding up and out of the landing bay without a single lurch or toss. Nigel pointed the nose up, and Adam’s ship carried them away from the sands of Tatooine until the blue curve of the sky faded and gave way to the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nigel’s line about lies being “pointed on both ends” is a reference to Hannibal’s line about perception being "a tool that’s pointed on both ends." I couldn’t resist. Fleeting references are half the fun of AUs. ;) 
> 
> I dodged the difficult question of "What would Asperger's Syndrome be called in the Star Wars universe?" by having Adam dodge the use of terminology. I'm still not sure how much of a cop out that is. But there is no Hans Asperger in this universe for the syndrome to be named after, and I can't imagine that the entire galaxy has a single term for the syndrome in any case, so this approach gives us some simplicity. 
> 
> Let me know if you enjoyed this chapter! 
> 
> And come say hi on Tumblr if you like. You can find me at [magicaldestiny](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/magicaldestiny).


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has left kudos and encouraging comments! I'm still writing my way through this, distantly amazed that this AU works so well, and even more amazed that I'm not alone in enjoying it. I hope you'll enjoy this next chapter. It's probably my favorite so far.

The smell of ozone and sun-baked sand burned in Nigel's nostrils. Blood seared a trail down his temple, leaking from the throbbing wound just above. He was deaf except for a distant, high-pitched ringing and his vision was blurred, but he still managed to lock his eyes onto Gabi's distant form. She was running, farther and farther away. The blaster bolt intended for her had knocked him flat, he realized, gradually registering the heat of the sand seeping through his canvas tunic. She was going to make it. He tasted blood when he smiled. 

His hazy brain struggled with the fact that he wasn’t beside her, no matter how glad he was that she was going to get away, and his fingers stretched toward the disappearing blur that was Gabi. She was a shadow against the brilliance of the twin suns on the bleached clay of the slaves' quarters, fading, fading...

His ears cleared, just a little. He heard a shout, the screech of a transmitter being viciously snapped to life. The shadow wavered. 

And everything burned. 

The phantom smell of burning ozone was still overwhelming Nigel when he woke with a gasp. "Kriff," he muttered, low and savage, jamming his hands into his eyes to quell the sting behind them. It was the same kriffing nightmare he’d been having for years. Ever since…

He cut himself off, even in his own mind. He knew what came of focusing on the past. Booze and spice and a host of other things that never really drowned out the screaming pain. Getting back to work was the only thing that filled his brain enough to silence the memories. And he had work to do now, kriff it. 

Nigel sat upright in the pilot’s seat, smearing a hand over his face and blinking at the chrono on the panel in front of him. He’d drifted off for a couple of hours. The reversion chime was trilling; it must’ve woken him. Nigel dusted off his favorite Huttese curses and spat them at the chime as he slapped it in acknowledgement. Its shrill alert finally sank into silence. Nigel gripped the joystick firmly and watched the reversion countdown. Adam’s seat beside him was empty, but wherever he was, the ship would have alerted him to their status. There were plenty of seats with safety belts scattered around the ship. Adam had certainly buckled himself into one. 

Nigel still felt uneasy. He didn’t like being unsure, he realized as he eyed the countdown. He wished Adam was here so he’d _know_ he was alright. Nigel frowned at himself, bracing lightly as the countdown reached zero and the mottled glow of hyperspace stretched and receded into a brilliant scattering of stars. The reversion had been very smooth; he’d barely felt the transition. He forced himself to stop worrying about Adam in the back of his mind, focusing instead on the purplish curve of Malastare’s horizon. It was a peaceful view. 

“Are we stopping here for very long?” 

Nigel jumped, the safety belt bruising his shoulder. “ _Kriff_ , Adam,” he muttered. “Make a little noise when you walk. You scared the shavit out of me.”

“Sorry,” Adam answered, but he wasn’t looking at Nigel and he didn’t seem to be thinking about him either. His blue eyes were wide and searching as he leaned over the instrument panel to stare through the viewport. “The Malastare System,” he said, voice bright with enthusiasm. “Another view I’ve never seen. I might take a few holos to add to my star maps if we’re staying for more than a few minutes. We certainly won’t be staying long enough for me to attempt anything like the exploration I’ll do some day in the future. This will be one of my first Mid Rim stops when I finally…” Adam trailed off, staring into the stars like he’d forgotten words were necessary. He made quite a picture, leaning into the heavens, blue eyes burning hotter than the stars, with his curling brown hair like a sun’s corona around him. Nigel couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen so much passion in one place, let alone in one person. He almost forgot words were necessary, too. 

“Uh,” was the first thing that came out of his mouth, to his own irritation. Nigel shook himself and tapped the nav computer forcefully, prompting it to reset for the next jump in their sequence. A diagnostic message flashed across the screen beside it, cheerfully reminding him to run safety tests before jumping again. Nigel grunted in annoyance, but punched the start button anyway. Loading bars appeared, flashing from red to green as each system was checked and approved. “When you finally what, Adam?” Nigel asked, cursing his brain for taking longer than the _Stargazer_ ’s diagnostics to boot up. 

“What?” Adam asked, blinking in a slightly dazed way as he darted a glance at Nigel. “Oh. I was referring to my plan to fly through as many systems as I can manage to view and study the galaxy’s phenomena up close. I calculate that it will take several months, once I’m ready.” 

“Aren’t there holos and maps of all that kriffing phenomena?” Nigel asked, watching the nav computer’s progress bar. 

Adam looked at him sternly. “It’s not the same, Nigel.” 

Nigel thought it probably kriffing was, but he didn’t say as much. Not when Adam was staring at the lavender swirl of Malastare’s cloud banks and the infinite smattering of stars all around like it was a priceless work of art. He looked back at the view. It _was_ pretty kriffingbeautiful. 

“And who’s going to fly you around the whole galaxy?” Nigel asked absently, tapping his fingers against the panel as his eyes slid back to the nav computer.

“I would fly myself,” Adam answered without a pause. 

Nigel blinked. “I thought you couldn’t fly.” 

“I never said that. I said I needed a pilot for this trip.” 

Nigel felt like a stalled pod, dragging behind colossally slow engines as he tried to process the logic of Adam’s statement. “Kriff me, kid, why’d you hire me, if you’re a pilot?”

“I don’t like to fly routes I’m not familiar with,” Adam answered, like it was the most reasonable thing in the universe. “I’ll familiarize myself with all the necessary routes before I make my trip. I’ve memorized many of the hyperspace lanes already. It really is too bad there’s no means of travel faster than lightspeed. I’ll have to waste so much time in the space between the spaces I want to be.” 

Adam’s frustration was palpable. Nigel could almost feel it pressing against the two of them, condensing like mist on the transparisteel viewport. He leaned back in his seat, propping his feet on the panel safely away from the joysticks and levers, and stared out at the stars. He heard Adam’s chair creak when he did the same. 

“Nothing’s faster than light,” Adam murmured absently. “And yet the light of the stars is millions of years old by the time it reaches our eyes. The fastest speed in the universe, and it’s still not adequate for exploration.” He sighed and something about the sound weighed heavily on Nigel’s chest. The stars seemed old and sad, brilliant and burning all at once with Adam beside him. He felt something stirring in his chest under the weight of Adam’s sigh. Something dead, like krayt dragon bones rattling underneath the sand. 

"There's one thing faster than the speed of light,” Nigel said quietly, and the words ached as they passed his lips. They’d come up from somewhere deeper than he usually reached within himself. They’d come from a long ago memory.

“Love,” Adam replied at once. Nigel turned his head in surprise and found Adam looking back at him. “It’s an old spacers' saying,” Adam clarified, his eyes drifting back to the viewport. “My dad used to say that to me. I told him that claim was impossible to verify, since love is not a measurable force.”

Adam was right, of course. It was a ridiculous old saying, the kind that people laughed about, even when they passed it on. But Nigel remembered the burn of a blaster bolt against his skin. He remembered throwing himself between Gabi and certain death and being kriffing thankful for the chance to save her, even if his own body was the shield. Maybe sometimes love _was_ a measurable force. 

For all the kriffing good it did, in the end. 

Nigel sat up abruptly when the nav computer chimed, sparing a quick glance to confirm the diagnostics were in order. His fingers hovered over the hyperdrive levers. “Buckle up, your highness.” His voice sounded a little hollow in his ears. If Adam noticed, he didn’t comment. Nigel waited until he heard the click of the safety belt, and then he pulled the levers and sent them hurtling into the space between spaces at the speed of light.

===

Hyperspace was a mottled tunnel around the _Stargazer_ , swirling brilliant and indiscernibly fast. It hurt Nigel’s eyes to look at it too long, so his gaze roamed the cockpit instead. He’d almost memorized the mix of old paneling and new instruments when Adam appeared in the doorway, breaking up the monotony of durasteel plates and blinking indicators in red and yellow and white. 

“I brought you something to eat,” Adam announced. Nigel finally noticed the bowl in his hand. “You haven’t maintained a regular meal schedule since we departed Mos Eisley. We should correct that.” Nigel accepted the bowl in silence, unsurprised to see a helping of Adam’s pasta with the cheese sauce. 

“Thanks,” he said. The word tasted unfamiliar on his tongue. The pasta tasted much better. “Kriff, that’s good.” And it was. Small, firm noodles covered in warm sauce that tasted like cream and melted cheese — Nigel never ate anything so rich and delicious. He usually lived on ration bars, dehydrated meals, and hearty helpings of Corellian whiskey. 

Adam was smiling as he arranged himself in the co-pilot’s seat. “It is good, isn’t it? It’s a dish that exists on many worlds, but the Alderaanian variant,” he paused to gesture at Nigel’s bowl, “is my favorite.” 

Nigel ate every last bite at a speed that wasn’t quite polite, but he didn’t care, even with his highness watching him. He set the empty bowl beside the pilot’s seat when he’d all but licked it clean. Adam’s eyes followed the motion with something like disapproval, but he didn’t speak. They sat together in comfortable silence as hyperspace flashed by. 

“Nigel,” Adam asked, his voice almost as soft as the steady thrum of the hyderdrive. “What’s the tattoo on your neck?” He was studying it minutely when Nigel turned his head. The scrutiny made his skin prickle, and Nigel rubbed the old tattoo, feeling almost self-conscious. 

“A kriffing mistake,” he answered, trying for humor, but he sounded bitter instead. He winced and glanced at Adam, who seemed to be listening quite seriously. Nigel sat up straight and willed himself to stop wallowing in memories and answer the kriffing question. “It’s an Angel,” he said. “From the moons of Iego. And, in my case, from a night of too much booze and not enough judgement. I woke up with empty pockets and a brand new tattoo across my neck.”

“At least the artwork is good quality,” Adam commented with a nod. “An Angel. Yes, I see it now. Why did you choose an Angel?”

“I don’t remember,” Nigel said distantly. It was only half a lie. He couldn’t remember his precise alcohol-fueled reasoning. But he was sure he’d chosen an Angel as a tribute to the only person he’d ever loved. But even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t force those particular words out. They’d grown calcified and immovable in his chest years ago.

"Many people think the Angels are spiritual creatures because they remind them of figures from their respective mythologies or religions,” Adam reflected, staring through the viewport, his eyes unfocused and far away. “But Angels are a race like any other. They actually immigrated to the moons of Iego millennia ago. Their glowing skin and their wings make them an object of fascination to most of the galaxy because these characteristics meet many cultures' general definition of beauty.”

Nigel had never met an Angel. He’d seen holos, of course. Every spacer worth a kriff had. The stories circulated like myths, even though Angels were very real. They had multiple wings that rested gracefully against their bodies, and white faces and hands that supposedly gave off a soft glow. Their eyes could show the darkest heart hope. That last part was probably an embellishment to the myth, Nigel knew, but he’d always liked that particular flourish. Creatures of light that brought hope.

He looked at Adam. The kid’s face was caught in the white light of hyperspace, his eyes gilded with silver as he looked through the viewport with something like awe. Nigel had never met an Angel, but he suddenly had an idea of what it must be like to look at one. 

"Anyone ever tell you that you look like an Angel?” he asked. Adam blinked, and his eyes lost their silver glow as he faced the cockpit again, brows drawn tight in confusion.

“No,” he answered simply. “I don't have wings, or photo-projecting skin. I’m obviously human. Why would someone think that?”

This kriffing kid. Nigel couldn’t hold back his grin. 

“Nevermind, gorgeous.” 

Nigel looked away, but he felt the shift in Adam’s silence like a change in cabin pressure. 

“Gorgeous.” Adam said it like he was testing the word. Subjecting it to kriffing scientific scrutiny. Nigel looked back at him. He could almost see the gears grinding in Adam’s head as he considered the new nickname. Maybe he was out of line. Wouldn’t be the first time. Nigel sighed and waited for Adam to correct him. He’d strike the word from his repertoire and they’d move on. And Nigel would reserve the right to privately think that Adam looked very much like an Angel. 

“You think I'm beautiful?” Adam asked, his voice tight. Nigel thought it sounded like confusion rather than distress. “Or is that a joke?”

Indignation swirled hot as a sandstorm in Nigel’s chest. The kid was confused by compliments — which either meant he never received any, or that the ones he did were delivered as jokes. 

"It's not a kriffing joke, Adam,” he said, trying to hold back his anger. It wasn’t directed at Adam, after all. Just at all those faceless people who’d failed to tell Adam things he should have heard. “Do people make jokes like that around you?”

Adam shrugged, his eyes hovering somewhere around Nigel’s shoulder. ”People make a lot of jokes I don't understand. But it's not a joke?”

"Haven't you ever heard that you're gorgeous?” Nigel still couldn’t quite believe it. The galaxy was a kriffed up place, but someone with a face like Adam’s going their whole life without a single remark over it…

That was a whole new level of stupid. 

"No, I haven’t. We don't place a lot of importance on physical beauty on Alderaan. Mental and spiritual states are more important. I've never heard…that.” Adam’s eyebrows were knit together, his mouth loose as he processed the concept of being thought beautiful. Nigel watched the lines smooth away and transform into a faint smile that almost glowed in the light of hyperspace. 

“Then it's a good thing I fixed that,” Nigel said, watching Adam’s expression and condemning the entire galaxy for being a bunch of blind kriffing idiots for not telling the kid sooner. 

The reversion chime sounded shrill in the warm silence. Nigel palmed it and sat up, gripping the joystick. “Buckle up, gorgeous, we’re about to revert.”

Nigel waited for Adam’s customary correction — the kid didn’t seem too hot on nicknames in general — but he sat in contemplative silence. Hyperspace faded into the black expanse of space and the correction never came. 

===

For Nigel, the hardest part of shipboard life had always been the lack of solar days. The sense of shadowy timelessness beyond the hull combined badly with the constant light within, creating a dissonance that could drive an inexperienced spacer crazy. Nigel had gone a little loopy once or twice himself, especially on smuggling runs he’d done all alone. Adam’s strict schedule kept him anchored. 

Meals appeared at exactly 0700, 1200, and 1700, and Adam dimmed the lights shipwide when the chrono reached what would have been nightfall on Tatooine. He was also gradually adjusting the time to match the solar days on Alderaan, specifically the time zone that was home to Aldera, where they’d be landing. So, while time was definitely a relative concept, Nigel had no sense of free floating through time and space, unmoored from every cycle of sun and food and rest. His sleep schedule was the only thing that couldn’t quite be helped. 

Nigel slept in his seat whenever he had the opportunity. He had the smuggler's uneasy awareness that everything could and would go wrong during a run, so peace enough to lie down in his bunk was impossible. Besides that, there just wasn’t enough kriffing time to sleep for hours at a stretch. Most of their chain of projected hyperspace jumps were short things, two or three hours at most. Nigel had to be on hand to keep the chain going. But it wasn’t Nigel’s first time managing a haul across smuggler’s routes, not by a long shot. He was used to days of fitful sleep grabbed whenever possible. He was even used to the vivid nightmares that seemed determined to plague him whenever he closed his eyes. He wasn’t used to not being alone when they ended. 

“Nigel? Nigel!”

Nigel snapped awake at the sound of that soft voice, vibrating with concern. He gasped and sat upright, nearly knocking heads with Adam, who was leaning in close, one hand tentatively grasping Nigel’s arm. He didn’t particularly want to dislodge that one point of anchoring touch; when he reached up to brush his sweaty hair out of his eyes, he used his other arm. 

“Adam,” he groaned, still blinking against the lingering images of sun and flames reflected on a sea of sand. “I’m sorry. I was—“ He trailed off, words evaporating faster than a drop of water in the Jundland Wastes. He was what? 

“You were having a nightmare,” Adam said knowledgeably, patting Nigel’s arm once before withdrawing his hand. Nigel missed the touch immediately, but the feeling was quickly absorbed into the tossing sea of his thoughts. Adam straightened up, lingering by the chair like he wasn’t sure where to stand or what to do. “You're not always supposed to wake someone who's having a nightmare, so I didn’t at first, but you just seemed so upset. And I know it's nice for someone to be there when you wake up. Would you like some water?” Adam rattled off the mixture of facts and questions and assumptions like he was listing supporting points in an academic thesis. Nigel didn’t have the slightest idea how to respond to any of it, especially with his head swimming with a potent mixture of sleep and adrenaline. But he did know how to respond to the bottle Adam was offering him. He accepted it gratefully, taking a long gulp. 

“Thanks,” he muttered as he snapped the top back into place. Eye contact felt impossible after such a vulnerable moment. Nightmares were almost like regressing into a childlike terror, and Nigel hated being vulnerable in front of anyone. He made his customary decision to shift his unease into humor. “One suggestion, for the future.”

“Yes?” Adam asked immediately. Always eager for information. 

“When you wake a man from a nightmare, bring booze instead of water.” He forced himself to look at Adam at last. He was rewarded with a brief flash of blue and a smile that lasted longer. 

“Nigel,” Adam chided. “Waking people from nightmares is already a questionable practice. Waking them with alcohol is a very bad idea.” 

Nigel snorted and sank back against his seat, balancing the water bottle on one knee. Adam stood in front of him, his gaze fixed on the top of the bottle. 

“Did I do the right thing, Nigel?” he asked quietly. “I wasn’t sure I should wake you. But you were so—“ Adam paused, rubbing his fingers rhythmically as he considered. “So sad. I didn’t like to see you so sad.”

Nigel didn’t speak for a long moment, because he couldn’t think of a single kriffing thing to say. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken from a nightmare and been anything but alone. And now here he was, sitting with Adam and a kriffing bottle of kriffing water. He let out a breath.

It felt cleansing. 

“Yeah, Adam,” he answered at last. “You did exactly the right thing.” 

Adam nodded, looking relieved. 

The reversion chime startled them both. Nigel swiveled to face the dozens of blinking indicators on the instrument panel. Beside him, Adam was strapping himself into the co-pilot’s seat. Nigel grasped the hyperdrive levers and considered the strange thought slowly surfacing in his mind. 

Adam said he was the one who wasn’t typical, and Nigel knew a lot of people — kriffing idiots — would even say that Adam was damaged. But Nigel didn’t think that at all. Nigel thought that between the two of them, Adam was the one who wasn’t broken. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we finally have the inspiration for the title! That love-is-faster-than-the-speed-of-light conversation has been in my head since the beginning and I was excited to write it. Hopefully I did it justice. And hopefully it didn't turn out too cheesy. (I say while writing a crossover AU love story in space. Sigh.) 
> 
> Let me know if you enjoyed!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who left kudos and especially to everyone who commented. Heart eyes to you all.

Nigel had an idea. Probably a kriffing stupid idea — he had a lot of those, according to Darko. And according to Gabi, once upon a time. But his kriffing stupid ideas had also led him to his relationships with the two of them, so Nigel figured he couldn't be a completely lost cause.

Adam was the inspiration for this particular stupid idea and the bright center it revolved around. Something about his smile in the light of Malastare and the glow of hyperspace, his concerned hand on Nigel's arm after a nightmare — it all tumbled and spun in Nigel's brain like a solar storm, all heat and bright flashes. He couldn't process or express any of it adequately. 

Until he glanced at the nav computer between hyperspace jumps and his eyes wandered just slightly from their planned path. And the kriffing stupid idea was born. 

Nigel turned it over in his mind for a solid twenty-four hours as he blindly kept the _Stargazer_ jumping along its projected course. They were close now. A few hours and a couple of jumps would carry them to Alderaan. Adam would be home; Nigel would have a ship. And Nigel would never again have the chance to do what he was considering. He couldn't decide on the best course of action. 

So he decided to let Adam decide instead. 

“Adam?"

The conference room was dark when Nigel stepped out of the claustrophobic corridor that fed into the cockpit. A small speckled sphere rested in a raised receptor socket in the center of the long conference table, casting a haze of holographic light all around. A star map. 

“Yes, Nigel?” Adam’s voice floated in a vacuum until he appeared on the far side of the table, the stars tracing paths of light across his face as the sphere spun lazily in its socket. Nigel blinked to clear his head and his vision. He failed on both counts.

“Were you laying on the floor?” he asked at last, both because he was curious, and because he felt suddenly flustered about the question he’d actually come to ask. 

Adam was staring around the room. The faux stars turned his eyes a brighter, more luminous shade of blue. “I was watching the map and thinking about all the spaces I need to fill in.”

Nigel eyed the infinite stars. “It looks kriffing complete to me.” 

“This map is roughly complete,” Adam explained, taking on the air of a professor yet again, although Nigel couldn’t imagine a professor looking so excited. Adam’s smile was small but bright as he turned and gestured around him. “Except for the Unknown Regions, of course. But what I mean is that I have so many holos to add.” 

Adam paused, finger hovering over a planet and two suns that Nigel eventually recognized as part of the Tatoo System. When Adam tapped the planet deliberately, it shone sharply and the entire map zoomed in to focus on the system, all the more distant stars and planets fading away. Adam tapped again, and a flurry of holos erupted from the planet’s surface. There were holos of the fiery Tatooinian sunset, the endless Jundland Wastes, and the glow of Mos Eisley at night. More holos showed the planet’s brown and barren surface from a distance, the suns spilling across the distant horizon, light catching in a splintered rainbow of color against the atmosphere. Tatooine looked almost beautiful the way Adam had captured it. 

Nigel stared. 

“That’s…that’s something,” he said finally. “You’re doing that with all the systems you’re going to visit?”

“Oh yes,” said Adam. His eyes came to rest on Nigel’s shoulder. “What do you need, Nigel? Are we close?” 

“We’re, uh — yes. Just a couple more jumps now.”

Adam touched a fingertip to the projection of Tatooine and made a quick tossing gesture. The planet and its suns shrank as the rest of the map came rushing back in; Adam was lost in a million stars, standing at the very center of the universe. The stars slid across his skin as he stepped toward Alderaan and tapped its surface once to focus on the system, twice to activate its holo collection. Images of a palace nestled into snowcapped mountains, a city built into the walls of a seemingly bottomless canyon, and a massive observatory perched on a lonely peak floated before Nigel’s eyes. 

“I have plenty of holos of Alderaan, of course,” Adam continued absently, staring through the translucent images. “But I’m very ready to be home.” 

“About that,” Nigel said, rubbing at the tattoo on his neck like it might settle his uneasiness. “I want to make a little detour. Nothing huge. It’ll only delay us by an hour or two.”

The holo of the observatory floated between Nigel and Adam, casting Adam’s sudden frown in a pale blue light. “A detour? Why?” Adam started to wring his hands, a slow and anxious movement. 

“I thought you might like to see the Rex Nebula,” Nigel all but blurted out, desperate to stop Adam’s distress before it began. “I heard it was beautiful. And that it has a story behind it.”

Adam had gone perfectly still as Nigel spoke. The palace in Aldera floated between them now, pale and perfect. 

“I wanted to surprise you,” Nigel continued, ignoring the sinking feeling in his gut when Adam remained silent. “But I thought you might not like surprises.”

Adam prompted the map to return to its original large scale layout, turning to frown at a patch of light floating a hand’s length from Alderaan. He tapped it deliberately. A swirling cloud came into focus, a wide spiral drifting on solar winds. The Rex Nebula, Nigel realized. 

“I’ve never seen it in person,” Adam said quietly, staring into the holographic cloud. “You’re right, Nigel. I don’t like surprises.” His eyes flashed up to touch Nigel’s only briefly before darting away again. “But I like this idea. How long did you say it would delay us?”

Nigel couldn’t prevent a stupid grin from spreading over his face. “An hour, gorgeous. Maybe two, depending on how long you want to stay.” 

Adam watched the nebula where it floated serenely in front of him, graceful and beautiful and very much not the real thing. His fingers passed through it when he reached for one of its curving arms. “I want to be home,” Adam said, his brow pulling tight. “But I want to see this, too. Alright, Nigel.” He sent the map back into its galaxy-wide display and his face smoothed into a star-speckled smile. “Let’s go.” 

===

The Rex Nebula was relatively close to Alderaan, as galactic distances were measured. Only a few lightyears away — one short hyperspace jump. It was the work of only a few minutes to adjust their course to include one penultimate stop before Alderaan, and Nigel finished the calculations quickly. 

Adam fidgeted in the co-pilot’s seat for the duration of the jump, alternating between adjusting his holocamera and reciting an enormous amount of information about the nebula that Nigel only half understood. When the reversion chime sounded and Nigel pulled the ship back into realspace, Adam was on his feet in an instant, leaning toward the viewport as though he wanted to slide through it and float off into the nebula himself. 

Beyond Adam’s wide-eyed gaze, the Rex Nebula hung like a brightly colored cloud. It was distant enough that they could see the entire thing, a wispy, swirling mass in shades of blue and orange and green that reminded Nigel of the hottest flames in durasteel factories. The faint blue glow in the center of the nebula’s beautiful swirl was a neutron star, and swinging too close would mean a battle with the star’s gravity. Nigel, Adam, and the _Stargazer_ floated a safe distance away. 

”Adam,” Nigel asked, studying the whirl of color beyond the viewport, “What makes a nebula?”

Adam’s eyes were shining. He stood, silent and still, as though he’d forgotten the holocamera in his hand, the ship he was standing in, and the very existence of Nigel. He blinked at the question and Nigel saw the moment he remembered all those things. 

“A nebula is made of gas and dust,” he said softly as he finally lifted the holocamera and prompted it to focus with a series of taps. “Also stars, either living or long dead, and their solar winds and the various spectrums of light. If we were viewing this through an ultraviolet lens, we'd see even more than we do now. Additional layers of color and beauty.” Adam’s eyes unfocused as the holocamera whirred to life, scanning images rapidly. When it fell silent, he leaned over the instrument panel and turned the ship’s light levels down until the only illumination came from the neutron star’s radiance and the twinkle of the more distant stars beyond. Adam settled back into the co-pilot’s seat, his face and tunic stained a faint blue with the light. “Gas, dust, and wind,” he mused quietly, his eyes never leaving the viewport. “Things that are usually considered to have no substance or value. They're nothing. But up here, they're everything. It's so beautiful, Nigel.” He almost sighed. 

"Kriff me,” Nigel muttered, staring at Adam instead of the nebula. “It is.” He finally turned back to the faintly circular cloud, eyeing the filaments of orange and yellow that crisscrossed the bluish center like tongues of flame. “I heard this Rex Nebula had a story behind it,” he prompted. 

As he’d hoped, Adam stirred immediately. ”Not a true story. Just a myth.”

“Tell me.” 

Adam settled against his chair, his eyes reflecting the brilliance of the nebula. “The story is that there was a magnificent kingdom on a planet here long ago, in the years before hyperspace travel. Golden palaces, gardens with colors we don't have names for anymore. A kingdom of peace with one perfect sun that kept the climate temperate. The sun exploded—“ Adam’s voice didn’t change, so it took a moment for Nigel to register the sudden shift into tragedy, “—reducing itself and the entire planet into dust. But the kingdom and the people were so good that the nebula is the most beautiful in the Galaxy, and always will be. It’s a silly story, Nigel.” 

Nigel shook off the tragic turn of the story and grinned. ”Not a true story, huh? And yet you had it memorized.” 

Nigel could see Adam’s sudden flush even in the darkened cockpit. "I didn't like the story when I was a child,” Adam defended. “That’s when I heard it — when my dad told me bedtime stories. Sometimes he picked from the galaxy's canon of myths, and sometimes he'd make something up about my favorite stars. I usually asked him to read to me from astronomy texts instead. But now that he's gone…” Adam sat up, painfully straight, and clasped his hands together firmly. “I remember all of that, and it's a good thought, not just an incorrect one. I hear the myth of the Rex Nebula and I think of my father. I think that people and places can be with us even after they die, leaving something beautiful behind. I think that legacies are not myths and that there are some truths under the surface of fictions. Like that nebula: if you change the light, you see that there's more than you imagined. Perspective is everything. Even for the literal minded, like me.”

Nigel marveled at Adam for a long moment. The silence hung easily between them as the ancient nebula swirled beyond the viewport. 

“Are we staying long enough for me to take a few more holos?” Adam asked, his eyes flashing to Nigel’s just long enough for Nigel to see the excitement behind them. 

"Adam, take all the kriffing holos you want. We'll leave when you're good and ready." Nigel leaned back in his chair, settling in for a wait. 

Adam traced the edge of his holocamera with his fingertips. ”I want very much to be home, but I want the holos, too. I'll take a few and then we'll go.” He nodded to himself, as if affirming his own decision. His eyes never left the camera as he continued, “Thank you, Nigel. For the holos...and for bringing me here. You didn't have to do that.”

"I wanted to,” Nigel answered with a shrug. 

Nigel watched Adam’s rapt face as he stood in the light of a cloud of dust, gas, and radiation and smiled like it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. 

“I’m going to take some ultraviolet holos as well,” Adam said thoughtfully, tapping various indicators on his camera, and twisting the lenses through some complicated adjustments. “Wait until you see those images! Expanding the spectrum of light reveals so much.” 

Nigel looked again at the floating remains of whatever star or planet or whatever the kriff the Rex Nebula had once been, and wondered what it would look like from that expanded perspective. 

Deep in the solitude of his mind, he wondered what a change in the light might reveal about himself. He imagined long ago death burning like an exploding star in his heart, giving way to a neutron star, bright and alive and inescapable in its gravitational pull. The burning death and burning rebirth of his emotions. Feelings for another being were always a kriffing bad decision, and Nigel knew that better than most. He’d regretted every person he’d ever cared about, for one reason or another. 

But he watched Adam’s measured movements and his uninhibited smile, all painted in the burning glow of something dead that was now very much alive again, and, just for a moment, he couldn’t make himself regret anything. 

===

Nigel watched the reversion countdown listlessly. He had exactly five standard minutes until the _Stargazer_ reverted to realspace and brought them to Alderaan. He always hated the last part of any smuggling run; every doubt and all the lingering nerves came to a boiling point under his skin, an itch that could never be scratched until the job was over and done and Nigel was safely away. There was also the much more pleasant anticipation of the freedom that would come after the fact. The anticipation of a payday and the chance to fly away, free and clear. Nigel loved the anticipation.

He didn’t feel it this time. 

Every parsec closer to Alderaan was another parsec closer to walking away from Adam, a thought Nigel didn’t relish at all. In fact, he hated it, as he hadn’t hated anything in a very long time. 

"You've done a really excellent job of getting us here, Nigel,” Adam said from the co-pilot’s seat. “I'm glad I found you.”

Nigel only grunted in reply. He wondered if Adam would give him a few holos to take with him when he left. He shook off the kriffing pointless thought. He’d never look at the holos without someone to comment on each one, smiling in their soft glow. 

“I'll be sure to update the ship's log to reflect that you're the legal owner once we land,” Adam was saying when Nigel remembered to listen. “You deserve it, and more.” Adam paused, running his fingertips along the edge of his seat as he stared at the brilliant tunnel of hyperspace. Nigel noticed instantly when his rhythmic motions halted. He looked in Adam’s direction just in time to watch his face fall and his hands clasp the armrests. “Would you like to see the observatory when we land?” Adam asked, suddenly quiet. “I'll need to seek an audience with the Queen as soon as we arrive so she can help with Harlan's situation, but afterwards I would like to show you the observatory. Before you leave.” 

Nigel hated the dull ache that flared deep in his chest. Of course he wanted to see Adam’s kriffing observatory.

“I don’t know, gorgeous,” he said instead, flinching internally. Such a small denial, but it stung him. This was by far the best kriffing proof that he had to put as much distance as possible between Adam and himself, and quickly. He couldn’t stay on kriffing Alderaan forever, and Adam sure as kriff couldn’t come joyriding through the galaxy for any length of time. He had a life, unlike Nigel, who only had the pressing need to survive. He wasn’t sure why he’d attached himself so throughly to Adam so quickly, but it was a stupid kriffing mistake, and he needed to fix it. Feelings were an aggressive and malignant disease, the kind that could kill you. The only fix was amputation. Nigel stared at the chrono counting down to the fall of the blade. 

Two standard minutes. 

“Will you change the name?” Adam asked.

Nigel frowned at the chrono. ”What name?” 

"Of my ship,” Adam clarified. “ _Your_ ship, as soon as we land.”

The thought was depressing; Nigel fought to hide the fact. ”Oh. Kriff. No,” he said. “ _Stargazer_ has a nice ring.” He ought to change it. It would remind him of Adam. 

He knew he wouldn’t. 

“Nigel?" Adam turned his chair in Nigel’s direction, and lifted his eyes. “You could stay awhile, if you wanted. As a guest. I really would like to show you the observatory.” 

Nigel couldn’t remember Adam ever maintaining eye contact for so long before. For an alarming moment, he was caught in comparing the swirl of blue and green to the luminous tendrils of the Rex Nebula, and he forgot to speak. Adam blinked and dropped his eyes again, his lips tugging downward into a frown. Nigel wondered for a single, heady moment if Adam was as distressed by the thought of their upcoming separation as he was. 

The reversion chime shattered the silence. 

Adam swiveled his chair forward, snapping the safety belt into place. Nigel ignored the persistent ache behind his sternum and did the same. The hyperdrive levers were cold against his palm when he grasped them and brought the Stargazer back into the emptiness of realspace. 

“Welcome—“

— _home,_ he was going to say, but a spray of rock battered the viewport before he could get the words out. The light in the cockpit went a sudden, bloody red as emergency klaxons and proximity alerts screeched in tandem. Nigel all but dove for the shield controls. The scrape of rock on metal stopped as the membrane of energy blossomed around the hull, shimmering a faint green. Nigel was punching every blinking indicator in sight, trying to silence the alarms and activate the scanners to find out what the kriff they’d just flown into.

“Adam?” he called as he worked, forcing his voice to remain level and calm. He glanced over when there was no reply. 

Adam was curled in on himself, his hands clamped over his ears as he rocked and murmured to himself. Nigel cursed under his breath.

“Adam, we’re going to be okay. Listen to me, we’re okay—“

Adam whimpered, but Nigel thought his rocking might be slowing. He wished he was close enough to offer a comforting, grounding hand on Adam’s shoulder, like he had done for Nigel…

Something collided with the shield, shaking the hull of the Stargazer hard enough that Nigel felt a bruise erupting on his collarbone under the safety belt. Adam was rocking fast again, muttering something that sounded like, _stop stop stop_. 

Kriff it all to hell. 

Nigel let loose the stream of curses that was lurking just behind his lips as he stared at the scanners, willing them to work _faster_ , kriff it. When the images and data finally scrolled across his bank of screens, Nigel stared. The readings didn’t make any sense. There was an enormous belt of lifeless asteroids dotting the screen like swarming insects — that much Nigel could see through the viewport without the aid of the computer. What he couldn’t understand was that fact that Alderaan’s coordinates were flashing on the screen, but the planet itself was nowhere in sight. 

The computer must have kriffed up the coordinates, or else Nigel did. Not the end of the world. He double-checked their position so he could plot a quick jump out of this mess. The nav computer chirped an acknowledgment of the command, and supplied their current coordinates. 

Nigel stared. He ran the command again. 

The results were the same. 

“Nigel?” Adam asked, his voice trembling and slightly hoarse. Nigel raised his eyes to the viewport and tried to understand why there was a massive field of dead rocks where Alderaan was supposed to be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had way too much fun researching nebulae for this chapter. If you ever feel like staring at pictures in awe, google pics of nebulae. I had to pry myself away from the photos so I could actually, you know, write. 
> 
> The Rex Nebula is my own creation that I've slipped into the Star Wars universe, but this fic is so AU anyway that I feel totally okay with that. ;) 
> 
> Finally, I had Nigel think the phrase, "Not the end of the world," even though I usually try to avoid earth catchphrases in SW fic. But in this case, it's a phrase that makes sense, even in a universe with more than one world, so I let it slide. Don't judge me? 
> 
> Do comment, though. And let me know what you think!


	5. Chapter 5

“Nigel?” 

Adam’s eyes were wide as he stared at the nav computer. In his periphery, Nigel could see that he was shaking. Nigel tore his gaze away from the asteroid field littering the forward viewport and tried to focus. His mind was every bit as chaotic as the sea of rocks, full of tumbling whys and whats and hows, but only one thought flashed as bright as a passing comet. 

They needed to get the kriff out of here. 

“Alright, just hold on, I'm going to get us out of here, and then we're going to figure this kriffing shavit out.” When Adam flinched, Nigel forced himself to continue his cursing under his breath as he punched in the command to plot a short emergency jump. It would only take moments. 

“Nigel,” Adam said, swallowing hard. He pointed a trembling finger at the nav computer. “The coordinates.”

They could jump in about sixty seconds. “I see them, Adam. Sit down, this could get bumpy.”

Adam was shaking his head, shuffling closer instead of buckling up for a jump. “Don’t jump, Nigel,” he protested, leaning over the console to stare wide-eyed at the nav computer. Onscreen, Alderaan’s coordinates and a loading bar for the jump calculations flashed side by side. 

Every cell in Nigel’s body rebelled against the idea of sitting in an unmapped asteroid field and waiting to get crushed. “I have to, Adam, we can't sit in a kriffing asteroid field,” he all but barked, regretting his tone instantly. Adam didn’t seem to have heard him, even though he was only inches away. His voice was weak when he spoke.

“Nigel—“ 

“Just buckle up, gorgeous—“

“ _Nigel, don’t jump!_ ”

Adam’s sudden shout rang and echoed against the durasteel bulkheads. Nigel stared dumbly at him, his hand hovering over the nav computer as it chimed its readiness for the emergency jump. He had only to press the blinking indicator onscreen. 

Adam’s shaking hand pushed Nigel’s away. “I need—I need to see the nav computer,” Adam said at a normal volume, but his voice was frayed. 

Nigel nodded silently, eyes sliding from Adam’s tight face to the viewport and back again. The shields should hold the asteroids at bay as long as they were stationary. But they’d need to leave soon if they wanted to avoid drifting further into the asteroid field. It was one thing to jump to hyperspace from the fringes of this sort of obstacle. It was another to attempt a jump from the middle of a floating sea of rock. 

The light of the stars was pale and cold on Adam’s face; he looked like an ice sculpture as he studied the nav computer, all frozen determination and bloodless lips. Nigel had never liked ice. It was an oddity to him after years of Tatooine’s punishing heat. More than that, it was so fragile. It always melted or splintered away into nothing. Adam swallowed, all the color bleeding out of his cheeks, and Nigel imagined that he saw the ice crack. 

“Nigel,” Adam said, with the sickening calm of the desert just before a sandstorm, “there’s nothing wrong with these coordinates.” Adam lifted his eyes to the viewport and the graveyard of rock beyond. His face was usually flushed with excitement or energy, but in the deathly light of the faraway stars, Adam’s cheeks were as white as bleached bone. He spoke faintly. “Alderaan isn't here.”

Nigel felt sick. “But what…?” he asked, unable to finish, desperate to hear an answer other than the obvious.

“Gone,” Adam whispered hollowly. He was standing close enough to touch, but the distance between them seemed infinite. Adam was so far away. 

“That's not possible,” Nigel argued, vaguely aware that it sounded like pleading. “A whole planet _can't_ just—“

“Explode,” Adam finished, flat and exact. “It can. They do. Just not usually with the whole population on the surface. Gone.” Adam’s breath snagged, and he took a step back from the viewport, almost stumbling. “Gone,” he repeated, and Nigel finally saw that there were tears in his eyes. “ _Gone!_ ” Adam shouted like a dam bursting, curling his hands into fists and pressing them hard against his skull. “Gone, gone, _gone…_ ” His shaking intensified; his knees gave out from under him. Adam clawed at his hair and breathed raggedly. His voice was a horribly broken thing when he spoke. “It's gone, Nigel. They're gone. The observatory...my father's grave…” 

Nigel struggled to force words past the knife in his throat. “Adam, I'm so sorry—“

“Nigel,” Adam whispered, tears flowing silently down his bloodless cheeks. “I don't understand. Nigel…” He lifted his eyes, and Nigel felt his throat spasm when he saw the agony behind them. He couldn’t speak. So he knelt down and gathered Adam into his arms instead. 

Adam clung to him like he was the only solid thing in the universe. Given the graveyard behind them, it probably wasn’t far from the truth. Nigel felt it when Adam’s stuttered breathing gave way to sobs. Nigel thought of Adam’s beautiful holos of snow and mountains and palaces. He felt the shake of his shoulders and the heaving of his diaphragm. He felt the echo of his agony, and Nigel’s face crumpled with the blow. He held on for dear life, and if a few sympathetic tears were wrung out of him, nobody had to know about that, did they? And what did it matter anyway, in the face of something like this?

He shushed Adam as gently as he could, maneuvering so that he could sink down on the double-seated passenger bench behind the pilot’s chair, holding Adam close the whole time. His shirt was wet where Adam had buried his face against it. Nigel settled them both carefully, rubbing his hand softly and rhythmically across Adam’s back as he sobbed. 

“The stars, Nigel,” Adam choked out, turning his head toward Nigel’s neck to speak. “They won't look the same. The planet is asteroids now, all dead rocks. The orbits have been broken. Nothing will ever look the same. How?” His voice fell to a whisper so lifeless that Nigel’s heart clenched. 

“I don't know, Adam,” he murmured. 

“Something did this,” Adam continued, his voice shaking. “The planet was stable and safe. It was beautiful in the summer and the winter and the ground never shifted. There were no quakes, no tremors, no instability in the core. No meteors incoming. I know, Nigel, I studied the skies every night, I would have seen. Something did this.” His breath trembled against Nigel’s neck in a quiet, suppressed whimper.

Nigel tightened his grip. “I’ve got you,” he promised. The silence pressed against them, broken only by Adam’s choked breaths as he wept into Nigel’s shoulder. Nigel wrapped both arms around him and held him as close as he could manage, even as he stared through the viewport. He didn’t understand this. He didn’t understand this at all. 

In the endless heaviness of the cockpit, Nigel silently hated the empty void outside the viewport. He hated the lifeless asteroids, the far-off barren wastes of Tatooine, the entire kriffing universe. He knew the feeling of having one foundation, one home in all the universe, only to have it blown sky high, like it never existed at all. He remembered losing Gabi, and how it had felt like he’d died too. He’d felt like he was flying apart, exploding outward into infinity, with no one and nothing to hold him together. 

He lowered himself to lay flat against the cushioned seats, tugging Adam with him. He laid limp against Nigel’s chest.

“Nigel,” Adam whispered after an infinity had passed. “I think that the story of the Rex Nebula isn’t true.” 

Nigel swallowed against the grief that rose up inside him like bile. It was always inside him. He hated that Adam would suffer that same way, now. 

"What do you mean, gorgeous?” he asked, careful not to raise his voice enough to trouble the silence. 

“I think that dead things aren't beautiful,” Adam answered, his voice airless and empty. “They’re just dead.”

Nigel stared at the rubble of Alderaan — an endless field of barren rock, clawing at the ship with malignant intent — and he couldn’t argue. “Oh, darling,” he murmured against Adam’s hair. “I’m so sorry.” 

Adam wept again, and Nigel did his best to hold him together.

===

Nigel left Adam in silence for what felt like hours and like no time at all. Adam had gone unnaturally still against Nigel’s chest, but his breath came evenly, so Nigel didn’t disturb him at first. Not until Adam’s eyes went glassy and distant as he stared through the viewport. 

“Adam?” he prompted softly. Adam didn’t so much as blink. “Adam,” Nigel tried again, a little louder this time. His voice was an invasion of their cocoon of silence, and it made his own skin crawl. Adam should have flinched from it, or blinked, or shifted. He stared instead. “Adam, we should get you something to eat,” Nigel continued, ignoring the sharp note of worry in his tone. He’d heard of people going catatonic with grief, but surely Adam wouldn’t retreat so far into himself…

Nigel realized with a jolt that he had no idea what Adam would do. Or what _he_ would do, for that matter, if he had a beloved home planet that had just been destroyed. The overwhelming thought left him dizzy and worried. His own experience of grief had been enough to nearly destroy him, and he’d been mourning one person, not an entire planet. He’d exploded outward, wallowing in spice and booze and smuggling runs so dangerous he’d almost gotten himself killed more than once. That had probably been his intention, on some level. 

Adam seemed to be imploding instead. His empty eyes reminded Nigel of old spacers’ tales about black holes in the depths of space. _Mind those scanners. You hit a black hole without warning and it’ll crush you before you know you’re screwed. Not even light escapes gravity, in the end._

Nigel sat up, taking Adam with him. Adam was as limp as the pitiful cloth dolls the slave children played with on Tatooine when Nigel shifted him to rest against his shoulder. “Adam,” he murmured carefully, cradling his head for just a moment before he let his hand drop. “I need you to say something.”

Adam stared fixedly at the chunks of rock floating by. 

Fear was a slow and steady trickle in Nigel’s mind, swelling every moment that Adam stayed limp and silent. “Talk to me, gorgeous,” he pleaded, but Adam either couldn’t hear him, or wouldn’t. The silence was thick enough to choke on. He imagined Adam in the vacuum of space, floating away from everything in that silence. Floating away from Nigel. Desperation clawing at his throat, Nigel decided to toss him a line. 

“There was somebody I loved once. Her name was Gabi,” Nigel said, shocking himself when the words came out and didn’t turn to dust as they left his lips. He’d been half convinced that Gabi’s name could no longer exist in the physical world, that it was locked somewhere deep inside him and could never emerge again. He followed Adam’s unfocused gaze to the viewport, but he forced himself to see the stars instead of the blasted chunks of stone. 

“I met her on Nar Shaddaa when I was young and stupid and thought nothing could hurt me. We were poor, just a couple of street kids. We stole a ship to get offworld and go somewhere else. Anywhere else. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Nar Shaddaa, Adam, but it’s a kriffing cesspool. The air is foul and the people are fouler, not that it’s their fault. The Hutts run everything, and you either work for them and live in filth, or you don’t work for them and you die in filth. Not much of a life.” 

Talking felt like ripping open a wound, like hot blood spilling out, faster and faster. He hoped it would revive Adam — a transfusion of life. 

He’d never told anyone this story. 

“We stole from the wrong Hutt, it turned out. Not that stealing from Hutts is ever a good idea, so don’t try it.” Nigel’s laugh was pathetic, a weak thing that died almost before it lived. “He sent bounty hunters after us and they dragged us back. I don’t know how much you know about the Outer Rim, but when it comes to the Hutts, their favorite penalty for thieves is enslavement. We were sold to a Hutt on Tatooine.” Nigel remembered Gabi’s face when they’d jumped to hyperspace that first time, before they’d been captured. She’d laughed. 

“We had plans,” he said with hoarse reverence. “We were going to head to the Core and see how the other half lived. That was all kriffed when we were caught and sold. Slave transmitters injected — big things, Adam, kriffing ugly and kriffing painful when they shove them in — so we couldn’t escape. They blow you up if you try to run. Sometimes you can deactivate them if you know someone with the right equipment. Someone who’s willing to risk their neck over a slave. Not good odds.” 

Gabi had done any and every type of work for their master, but once it came out that she was a musician, she played for every party on every sail barge in the region and got nothing but another day of not being blown up for her trouble. She’d still smiled most nights. She was glad she had the music at least. And she was glad she had Nigel.

“We decided to run the same day we arrived, but it took years to come up with a plan. A junk dealer in Mos Eisley would deactivate the transmitters for a steep price, so we had to steal and save. Sometimes we didn’t eat so we could add to the pile of credits we hid in the wall. Gabi used to tell stories on those nights — about the stars, Adam, the constellations — so we wouldn’t think about how hungry we were. She told beautiful stories. I’m kriffing awful at telling stories. I forget the details that make them worth listening to. She never left anything out.”

They’d slept on a pallet in their cramped apartment in the Slave Quarter. It was a rough stack of levels, sandstone staircases zigzagging between the tiers of doorways. Nigel remembered mothers snatching at their children and holding them tight as they descended. It was steep and easy to fall. 

Sometimes they’d sleep with a lantern to keep the shadows at bay as Gabi whispered her stories. Sometimes they’d light a lamp that burned bantha fat so they could keep warm during the cold desert nights. Gabi had looked like a dream in the soft firelight. Warm, soft edges against velvet shadows. 

“The day we tried to run—“ Nigel’s throat closed and he swallowed hard against the sharp ache. “It didn’t work. The foreman was there and we didn’t know he would be, he wasn’t _supposed_ to be, kriff it. He caught on to the fact that we were leaving and it wasn’t for work. He shot at us. He hit me, because I put myself between him and Gabi. She almost made it, after that. She was so close that he pulled out his transmitter and—“

Phantom flames swallowed up the cockpit, the transparisteel, the asteroids, the emptiness beyond them. The flames that had taken Gabi when her transmitter blew. He still saw them in his nightmares. 

“I wonder if he’d managed to clip her with a blaster bolt instead, like he wanted, if maybe she’d be alive today,” Nigel confessed, the heat of the memory still chewing and burning at him. “Maybe I caused the whole kriffing thing.” He sighed hard, and squeezed his eyes shut until he could speak without his voice shaking. “They patched me up and said if I tried to escape again, that I’d go the same way as Gabi. I went home and cut the transmitter out of my side.” He remembered the pain, the blood. The empty numbness when it was over. It was a dangerous thing to do. The other slaves whispered that you could set off the explosives by tampering with them. But Nigel hadn’t cared whether he would live or die. He’d fainted from the blood loss. He remembered the way his vision had tunneled into black, the cold loss of sensation as he fell. 

He had that feeling again, like he’d been bleeding words instead of blood, but dying all the same. He tightened his grip on Adam; it felt like applying pressure to the wound. Beside him, Adam turned his head, just slightly. His hand gripped Nigel’s shirt, the faintest of movements. 

“She died and I thought for a long time that I died with her,” Nigel pressed desperately. “Adam, I don't know if death brings beauty or any of that kriffing mythical shavit. All I know is that I'm not dead and neither are you. Whatever happened before, I’m here with you, now, and I don't regret that.”

“I’m sorry, Nigel,” Adam said, so quiet that Nigel wondered whether he’d imagined it. But Adam moved, finally, wrapping both arms around him. 

“Nigel,” Adam murmured, clutching hard at Nigel as he buried his face into his shoulder. “Nigel.”

It wasn't a question or an address. If anything, it sounded like a plea. Nigel held on, silently rejoicing in the sensation of Adam’s breath against his neck, the grip of his hands, the flutter of his blinking. Adam was alive. And so was Nigel. 

===

Nigel wasn’t sure how long they slept. His chest felt marginally less empty when he woke, groggy and rubbing at his swollen eyes. His arms, on the other hand, felt entirely too empty. Adam was standing over the instrument panel, hands clenched into fists where they rested against it. 

“Adam?” Nigel asked, hauling himself into a sitting position with a groan. 

“We need to find out what did this,” Adam replied, determination in the rigid set of his shoulders. “And then we can decide what to do.” He turned around; Nigel’s chest clenched at the hollow look in Adam’s eyes. But he was here and he was thinking and he was alive. The rest would right itself eventually. Nigel had never believed in those sorts of platitudes before, but he looked at Adam and found faith in many, many things. Especially the fact that Adam would be alright. He had to be — there was no facing the alternative.

Adam sighed, and Nigel caught a glimpse of the exhaustion trembling just beneath his determined surface. He scooted over to make room on the long strip of passenger seating. Adam took the hint and dropped onto it. His hand caught on Nigel’s like it was the most natural thing in the galaxy. Nigel turned his hand to tangle their fingers and tried to dismiss the thought that Adam’s hands were beautiful until a more appropriate moment. Adam’s fingers were still faintly trembling. 

“I said ‘we,’” Adam acknowledged wearily. “But I will understand if you want to jump to a spaceport and let me off. The ship is still yours, as per our deal. I can find another.” A tear slid down Adam’s cheek, making a lie of his expressionless tone. “You’re free to go wherever you like, Nigel.” 

Freedom. It was a concept Nigel had always struggled with, from the slums of Nar Shaddaa to the Slave Quarter of Mos Eisley, to the Imperials breathing down his neck on smuggling runs. He’d run his whole life and never once felt free. And here was this kid, offering him the chance to make a clean break and never look back at any of the things that had haunted him. To run off and be free and not have a care or a tie in the universe. It was what he’d always wanted.

Nigel looked down at their entwined hands and thought that what he’d always wanted didn’t sound like freedom at all. 

“Adam,” he said, soft and insistent. “ _We’ll_ find out what happened. And then we’ll decide what to do.” Adam looked in his direction, if not quite into his eyes; his smile was small and broken, but absolutely sincere. 

“Thank you, Nigel.” 

Nigel tightened his grip on Adam’s hand. 

“First,” he said, relieved when the heavy, airless atmosphere of the cockpit finally stirred into something breathable for the first time in hours, “We need to get you some food. It’s past kriffing dinner time.”

“Dinner time,” Adam echoed, like it was a foreign concept. “I forgot—“

Nigel registered a flash of color in his periphery. He and Adam turned together to stare at the faint glow of the instrument panel. There were a number of fast-moving blips on the radar screen. “What the kriff—“ 

The emergency klaxons and the proximity alerts wailed together, the lights in the cockpit flashing a dull red. Kriffing hell. 

Adam jerked, his hand going taut in Nigel’s grasp. Nigel knew he would curl in on himself, knew he would snatch his hand away and rock and cover his ears to block out the stimuli. He’d check the scanners as soon as Adam let go.

But Adam didn’t let go. He released Nigel’s hand, only to grasp his arm instead, sacrificing the arms he could have used to cover his ears to hold onto Nigel, cocooning the two of them in a gesture that seemed half like seeking comfort and half like placing himself between Nigel and whatever loomed outside. 

Nigel had never in his life been protected by another being. He lost the ability to do anything except stare and swallow past the pain in his throat. 

He heard the scream of an engine growing close enough to rattle the hull. Not one engine, he corrected himself grimly — twin ion engines. The first one flashed past the forward viewport: an Imperial TIE fighter, followed closely by his wingman. He could hear that there were several more, now. There was probably a whole squadron circling them, forming a perimeter they wouldn’t be able to break, especially with the asteroid field reducing the area the fighters would have to cover. There was no point in checking the scanners. The exact number of fighters didn’t matter. They couldn’t run and they couldn’t shoot. Not from a consular ship without a single ion cannon or laser turret to its name. Nigel knew it without a doubt — they were as good as dead. 

Adam’s grip was stopping the blood flow in his arm, leaving him with the cold tingle of pins and needles in his fingertips. His blood ran colder still. Alderaan was destroyed and the Empire was here. It was no coincidence; wanton destruction was their calling card. Nigel had thought destroying an entire planet would be beyond the reach of both science and reason — why blow your own kriffing empire to hell? — but apparently nothing was unimaginable anymore. For one horrible moment, the Galaxy seemed emptier and colder than Nigel had ever known. 

Beside him, Adam’s eyes widened — and then turned as hard as ice. 

“I heard rumors of the Empire building a super weapon,” he whispered, “but I didn't believe it…”

There weren’t enough curses in Huttese or Basic for this. If there had been any chance of the Imperials pulling an inspection and letting them go, it was gone now. They were witnesses to an atrocity that, in all likelihood, no one was supposed to know about yet. 

The comm was blinking. They were probably being hailed with instructions to prepare for boarding. Nigel couldn’t make himself move, even when he heard the unmistakeable clang of a shuttle locking itself into the boarding airlock. 

Kriff it all to hell. 

“What are we going to do? We're in trouble, Nigel,” Adam whispered, tight and frantic. “They won’t let us leave, not after we’ve seen this!” Adam didn’t seem to realize that there was no escaping from this. Nigel felt the shattering weight of despair settle over him like it hadn’t done since he’d watched Gabi’s ash drift in the wind. He looked at Adam. 

Blue eyes bored into his, open and frightened. Bright with tears, and with something else — hope. Hope that they’d make it out of this death trap alive. Hope that they’d find the truth about what exactly had happened. Hope for justice, for a new day. Hope for life. 

Nigel felt himself crumble under that gaze, and he hoped too.

“We're going to make it out of this,” he decided, pulling Adam up with him when he stood. “We’re not in trouble. Not yet.”

Adam grasped his hand like it was the only thing that mattered. Hell, maybe it was. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Agh, so many EMOTIONS in this chapter. The destruction of Alderaan is so sad…and grief is so hard to write…and I’ve left Nigel and Adam in quite a predicament. Tune in next week! I really do apologize for the angst, though. :0 Let me know what you thought of the chapter! And thank you, thank you to those who commented last week.


	6. Chapter 6

After years of dodging Imperial patrols with varying success, Nigel knew the kaleidoscope of sounds that went with their boarding parties. He heard the squeal of buzzsaws against the far airlock, two corridors and one conference room away from the cockpit, heard the sickening thud when the heavy door gave way to its own weight and crashed to the floor. The stomping of Stormtroopers filled the air before the silence could settle.

Nigel knew they had only seconds before Stormtroopers would be swarming up the corridor and into the cockpit like stinging insects. Adam stared down the hall; Nigel gently grasped his arms to pull his gaze back in his direction. 

“Listen to me very carefully, Adam. Have you ever been in a situation like this? Imps bearing down on you?”

Adam was trembling so hard that when he shook his head, Nigel could barely distinguish the motion. 

“Okay, gorgeous. That’s okay. You just let me do the talking. Go along with whatever I say, even if it’s not true at all, alright?” 

Adam nodded shakily.

Nigel was already running through a thousand possibilities in his head. Hiding wasn’t an option, not with Imperial scanners. And hiding would be a confession of guilt by default. They'd be detained indefinitely if they were lucky, shot before they could blink if they weren’t. They had to go for a different approach. Playing dumb was probably their best bet. He’d have to sell the idea that they were convinced they’d suffered from computer error and had no idea they were floating through the remains of a destroyed planet.

Adam was perilously close to hyperventilating. Nigel rubbed at his arms as he continued. “They’re going to bust in here and point guns at us, and I need you to stay as calm as you can. Do whatever they say and let me talk. We’re going to get down on our knees, hand on our heads, so they don’t get any bright ideas about us having weapons.” He sank down and tugged Adam with him. The dull metal floor ground into his knees. 

The pounding of feet and the electronic sound of helmet-filtered voices was getting closer. Nigel laced his fingers behind his head and watched as Adam did the same, his eyes locked onto Nigel’s shoulder. Adam’s eyes looked more gray than blue in the dim mixture of starlight and the _Stargazer_ ’s artificial illumination. Nigel swallowed back his fear until it was nothing but a cold lump in his chest. “We’re going to get out of this,” he promised. “If they scare you, you look at me, okay?” Adam opened his mouth to reply.

“Identify yourselves!” came a harsh shout down the corridor. “Or we’ll come in shooting.”

“There are two of us,” Nigel yelled back, grinding his teeth to keep himself from adding anything more colorful. “We’re unarmed.” Adam whimpered; Nigel almost choked on a wave of anger at the sound. Mangy kriffing Imps.

“Hang on,” he whispered. “Hang on, Adam.” 

The first troopers appeared two abreast, their blasters trained on Nigel and Adam’s heads, each sporting full body armor made of interlocking white plates and skull-like helmets with soulless black lenses. The average troopers were known for shoddy marksmanship — and for making everyone’s lives hell. Nigel kriffing hated Stormtroopers. 

“We’re cooperating,” Nigel said, loud and clear. “Don’t kriffing shoot us.” 

The two troopers ignored him — or maybe they looked his way, how could Nigel tell in those stupid kriffing helmets? — and fanned out to flank the instrument panel, two more troopers squeezing in behind them. One of them held a miniature scanner that popped and squealed as he swept it across the cramped cockpit. 

“Clear,” he called, and came to attention as he moved away from the open doorway. 

A single figure emerged behind him, wearing a black uniform and matching cap with a silver insignia above the short, curved brim. Nigel took in his gleaming black boots, the rigid posture, the rank bar pinned at his chest, just under a pale face and a superior sneer. An Imperial officer. If there was one class of kriffing Imps that Nigel hated more than the troopers, it was the low-ranking officers. Eager to advance, to make their mark. Eager to lift themselves up by grinding everyone else under their well-polished boots. Nigel barely contained a snarl.

“Well,” said the officer, sweeping his eyes over the cockpit with obvious disdain. “What do we have here? Smugglers?” He paused beside Adam, whose face crumpled in distress. “Not very seasoned, I see.” 

“I’m the captain,” Nigel interrupted forcefully. “You can talk to me.” 

“Very well,” the officer assented, turning on his heel to face Nigel. “Then you can explain to me precisely what your business is here. _Captain_.” Being on his knees, forced to look up at someone claiming mastery over him — it made Nigel sick with anger and humiliation. He focused on Adam in his peripheral vision, clenching his jaw hard until he felt the condescension roll off his back.

“Kriff if I know,” he answered cooly. “The damn nav computer's malfunctioning again. I don't know where we are or why the kriff I'm staring down the barrel of a blaster. Search the ship if you want, but we're not a smuggling crew. I’ll swear to that.”

The officer seemed to have only two expressions: smirking superiority and bad-humored hauteur. He assumed the second expression as he absorbed Nigel’s words in silence. He turned only his head when he addressed the trooper nearest him, the rest of his body locked in perfect, unyielding posture. 

“The nav computer,” he said. “Check their course and destination.” His hard eyes flicked between Nigel and Adam as he waited for answers. 

“Sir,” said the trooper, stepping back to allow his superior to inspect the glowing display.

“Ah,” the officer murmured. “You claim you are not smugglers, and yet you’ve traveled by nothing but undocumented hyperlanes for several days. Wonders never cease.”

Nigel shrugged, ignoring the worry that buzzed insistently in the back of his skull. “So we took the scenic route. The kid here loves to sightsee.”

Adam nodded frantically. “Y-yes. Sightseeing. That’s true.”

“That’s certainly a relief, I must say,” the officer replied brightly, stepping around Nigel and spinning to face him. His fist moved so quickly that Nigel missed the actual moment of impact and only became conscious of what had happened when his palms were flat against the floor, a small puddle of blood pooling between them. Pain blossomed in his cheek and jaw like a poisonous flower. 

Adam cried out; two troopers were holding him down with rough hands against his shoulders when Nigel lifted his head. “Stop,” Adam wailed. “Don’t hurt him!” His breathing was ragged and his eyes were full of tears. 

Nigel swiped at the blood leaking from his lips and put his hands behind his head again, injecting as much defiance into the motion as he could. “It’s okay, Adam,” he said, swallowing back the blood welling in his mouth. “I’m okay.”

“You're bleeding,” Adam whispered, sounding so desolate that Nigel had to take a long breath before he could look at him.

“I’m okay,” he insisted. Adam stared straight into his eyes, heedless of the troopers’ bruising grip on his shoulders. Nigel never wanted to look away. 

The officer invaded his line of sight. 

“Cuff them,” he barked. “I’ve had enough of this. We’ll take them back to base for interrogation.” The troopers sprang to action immediately, wrenching Nigel’s hands behind his back and clasping a thick pair of stuncuffs painfully tight around his wrists. Nigel winced, but didn’t resist. He’d felt the jolt of stuncuffs before. Being pumped full of electricity at the press of a button was not an experience he was keen to revisit. 

One of the troopers beside Adam released his shoulder to reach for a second pair of cuffs. They were going to cuff Adam, too, Nigel realized, his brain moving much too slowly in the fog of stress and pain. They were going to cuff him, drag him out of the ship he loved, away from his star maps and his holo camera and his kriffing cheese pasta. He’d be tossed in some hellhole detention cell, left in the silence and the cold until they finally brought in the torture droid… 

Nigel’s mind filled with static. 

And then his whole world turned _red_. 

There was no kriffing way in all the hells of Corellia that any kriffing Imp was laying a hand on Adam.

“Alright, you’ve got me,” he announced, smothering his rising desperation. “I was using the kid as cover. He's a tourist, and I'm a smuggler. He doesn’t know anything. Turn him loose, and I'll give you anything you want to know. Routes, shipments, buyers, sellers. You won't even have to torture me. I’ll give you whatever you want.” He looked up at the officer and slathered his voice in sincerity. “It’ll look good on your record, if I talk.” He was betting big that this Imp was more interested in advancement than in the protocol of things like detaining everyone aboard a ship suspected of smuggling. 

The officer’s face twisted in barely contained rage and Nigel realized he was dealing with the worst class of Imp imaginable: a kriffing true believer.

“My record,” the officer hissed, leaning close to Nigel’s face. “Is none of your concern. Now then—“

“Wait,” Nigel broke in, thinking desperately. The troopers opposite him still hadn’t cuffed Adam. He had one other play. He swallowed and prayed that Adam would forgive him. “My passenger. He’s neuroatypical. You’re not equipped to handle him in a standard detention facility. Believe me, you don’t need that kind of headache. You’re better off just letting him go. We’ve had a computer error, and you’ve got me fair and square, but let him go. Let him jump out of here. And he’s off your hands.” 

The officer didn’t reply immediately. He turned briskly to face Adam and nodded to the trooper on Adam’s right. “Identification?” the trooper barked. 

“R-right pocket,” Adam murmured, barely audible. 

The trooper fished out a small datachip, and passed it to the trooper still holding the unused pair of stuncuffs. Nigel tried to catch Adam’s eye, but Adam was watching as the trooper with the cuffs slid the datachip into a reader and stared at the resulting flash of holos and text. 

“It checks out, sir,” the trooper said briskly. “Neuroatypical. No further elaboration.” 

Silence filled the cockpit like the pressing heat of the Jundland Wastes. Nigel could feel his pulse pounding in his neck. 

The officer stared hard at Adam. The razor sharp line of his shoulders shifted just enough to allow a cruel shrug. “We won’t be able to get anything out of this one.” Nigel felt an almost frantic burst of hope in his chest. The officer turned just enough that Nigel could see his cold smile when he spoke again. “Perhaps the spice mines of Kessel would be a more productive destination for him.” 

And just like that, Nigel’s hope suffocated and died. The spice mines of Kessel were as much of a death sentence as a firing squad. Only the execution took months and years of back-breaking labor in an oxygen poor atmosphere further choked with the poisoned by-products of the mining operations. It was a sunless, airless non-life, lived in pits running miles deep. Being sentenced to the mines was worse than being shot here and now. 

The two troopers flanking Nigel pulled him up by the arms, straining his shoulders almost past endurance, but Nigel thrashed anyway. “You can’t—“ he sputtered. “You _can’t_ —“

“I’m afraid I already have,” the officer said flatly. “You there,” he turned to address the trooper on Adam’s right. “Stay with him and keep him contained. A pilot will be sent to you with further instructions on the handling of the prisoner.” The single trooper stood at attention and saluted in reply. The other trooper joined the two restraining Nigel and the three of them began to drag him toward the doorway. 

Nigel couldn’t breathe for a long moment. When his lungs final worked again, he could think of only one thing to say. “Adam!”

Adam looked up at him, a short flash of his nebula-bright eyes. He looked small, huddled against the floor. But he wasn’t shaking anymore. His mouth was pressed into a determined line, his brow furrowed in concentration. He didn't look broken. Something in Nigel’s chest swelled into a pain that rivaled even the bruises being pressed into his skin by three pairs of hands and a cold set of stuncuffs.

Adam blinked and reached one hand out in Nigel’s direction. The single trooper standing with him shouted something that Nigel couldn’t make out beyond the harsh tone. Nigel was dragged down the corridor, the officer trailing behind, blocking his last glimpse of Adam with his arm outstretched, his lips poised to speak. Nigel choked back a cry of frustration and tried to memorize that last look. 

===

Nigel fell hard when the troopers dropped him onto the bench seats in the cockpit of their shuttle. His head lolled and his muscles spasmed and twitched. He could taste metal on his tongue. They’d stunned him twice on the way over when he wouldn’t stop fighting. 

The fight had gone out of him now; he couldn’t force his brain and his muscles to act in tandem after the voltage he’d been subjected to. Kriff, those stuncuffs hurt. 

Two of the troopers fastened the crash webbing tightly across Nigel’s chest, leaving his cuffed wrists behind his back, pressed uncomfortably between the bulkhead and Nigel’s body. One blaster remained trained on him as a single trooper dropped into the passenger seats opposite Nigel. The other troopers moved toward the cockpit proper, which extended outward from the passenger seats lining the cargo hold, divided by nothing but the seam of the thick blast shield that deployed during fires and crash landings. Protect the crew, sacrifice the baggage. Nigel was the baggage on this particular trip. 

Nigel could hear the officer assuming one of the seats in the cockpit and barking orders at the two troopers at the instrument panel. The words came to him as if from a great, water-logged distance; his hearing was still off after being kriffing zapped. Nigel focused on pulling air into his lungs. Each breath burned. 

“Retract the airbridge,” the officer’s voice swam in Nigel’s ears. His vision was wavering; he kept seeing double. The trooper across from him slid into two fuzzy copies of himself, and then gathered together again. Nigel added blinking to his list of things to focus on. 

The airbridge stretching from the _Lambda_ -class Imperial shuttle to the _Stargazer_ groaned and shifted as the trooper at the helm tapped a quick flurry of commands. Blink, Nigel reminded himself. Breathe. The ache in his chest and the tremor in his vision were starting to settle. Once he could see properly, maybe he could _think_ properly again. Maybe he could think of some way to save Adam… 

The squeal of metal outside the hull was as sudden and shrill as a scream. The trooper at the helm went stiff as he leaned over the nav computer. 

“Report,” the officer demanded. 

“Malfunction in the docking clamps, sir,” the trooper gritted out. “I don’t—“ He froze, and his skull-like helmet didn’t entirely hide his wave of shock. “We’ve been hacked!”

Both troopers spun around, blasters coming up to cover the doorway. The officer grappled with his safety belt as he cast a venomous look over his shoulder at Nigel. It was the last look at him Nigel got. 

The blast shield deployed with no warning, slamming down between the cargo hold and the cockpit with a satisfying _thud_. Nigel’s ears were clearing with every passing second and he had the pleasure of enjoying the muffled cursing on the other side of the barrier. 

His enjoyment was interrupted when he found himself staring down a blaster barrel yet again. Kriff.

The single remaining trooper stared at him through his vacuum-black eye sockets. “How did you do that?” He demanded in his harsh electronic rasp. “Fix it!” 

“I didn’t do a thing,” Nigel replied, his tongue still feeling thick and clumsy in his mouth. “I can’t even feel my hands, let alone move them. So get your blaster out of my face.”

The leather of the trooper’s black gloves squeaked and protested at the force of his grip on the blaster. Nigel swallowed as the round barrel all but filled his vision. Blink, he told himself. Breathe. _Think._

He was all out of ideas. 

A blue flash like lightning filled his peripheral vision. Nigel squeezed his eyes shut against the glare and watched the afterimages dance red and purple behind his eyelids. When he opened them again, there was only empty air in front of him. The trooper had fallen into an unceremonious heap on the floor. What the kriff?

Quiet footsteps to his left. The muscles of Nigel’s neck throbbed, but he wrenched himself around to look. In the doorway, a figure in white. Blue eyes, dark curls. A blaster that looked big and clumsy gripped in two fine-boned hands. 

Adam kriffing Raki. 

“I stunned him,” Adam explained, a slight tremor in his voice. “I didn’t kill him. So we need to get out of here. I need you to help me move the other trooper. The one who was watching me.” Adam hurried across the cargo hold, keeping the blaster tucked against his side with one hand as he dipped into his pocket with the other, emerging with something that looked like a remote transmitter. He pressed a button and the stuncuffs on Nigel’s wrists fell away. Nigel tore at the crash webbing with uncoordinated movements and struggled to his feet. 

Adam watched his progress with a frown. “Did they shock you?” he asked. 

“Yeah,” Nigel admitted, his voice rough. Adam winced in distress. “But I’m good now, gorgeous. Let’s get the kriff out of here.” 

They sprinted across the airbridge. Nigel’s legs screamed the whole way, but he kept his cursing internal to spare Adam any further stress. They crossed the conference room, empty of Adam’s stars for the moment, and plunged ahead into the corridor leading to the cockpit. 

“How did you—“ Nigel started.

“Alderaanian ships have a feature that requires a computer link during docking,” Adam interrupted, his voice fluttering with tension. “Being a pacifist doesn’t mean being defenseless, Nigel. I hacked their system, crippled their engine and docking systems. The blast door should hold.” 

The cockpit of the _Stargazer_ looked exactly as it had when Nigel had been dragged away — minus the addition of an unconscious trooper dropped on the floor like a sack of muja fruit. Adam rushed to the instrument panel; Nigel stared. 

“How did you—?” he asked.

“I faked a panic attack. He let his guard down and I stunned him with his own blaster,” Adam rattled off, his voice tight. “I couldn’t let them take you.” His eyes flashed back to Nigel. “Can you drag him back to the shuttle, please? I need to undo the docking freeze and then we’ll get out of here.” 

Nigel couldn’t find any words that weren’t _kriff, you’re amazing,_ so he stretched his aching muscles and dragged the kriffing Imp down the hall, across the conference room, and back through the airbridge into the shuttle. He dumped the Imp who had tried to restrain Adam beside the Imp who’d tried to restrain _him_ , and grinned a little bit as he paused beside the airlock. “It’s been a pleasure,” he muttered, and saluted the crumpled troopers before he turned on his heel and palmed the airlock shut behind him. 

Adam was muttering to himself when Nigel stepped back into the _Stargazer’_ s cockpit. The console flashed under the expert tap of his fingers. Nigel heard the groan of metal as the boarding clamp released, setting the _Stargazer_ free. “They’re dead in space,” Adam said, sighing in tremulous relief. “I left the life support systems running, but the engine can’t be activated without outside help. They’ll drift until somebody comes looking. They said they have a base nearby, so that shouldn’t be long.”

“You—“ Nigel started, but every word died in his throat. He couldn’t think of anything adequate to say. 

Well, maybe one thing. He swallowed hard. 

Adam was busily tapping at the nav computer. “The emergency jump is still programmed. We need to get clear of the asteroid field and then we can jump. Nigel?” He lifted those stunning eyes and blinked at Nigel. “Are you alright?”

_No_ , Nigel thought, and wondered how it was possible that Adam holding a blaster was one of the most heart-stopping images he’d ever seen. Blink, he reminded himself. Breathe. “Yeah,” he muttered aloud. 

Adam nodded, eyes flicking across Nigel’s face in evaluation. “Can you fly us out of here?” he asked. Nigel thought that he’d probably launch himself out the airlock if Adam asked him. 

“Gorgeous, I can do anything you kriffing need me to.” 

Adam’s tense face finally broke into a smile. “Fly us out of here, Nigel.” 

They dropped into their seats, pulled the safety belts tight, and Nigel maneuvered the _Stargazer_ away from the drifting asteroids. Adam stared pensively at the field of rock. 

“Ready?” Nigel asked, his hand hovering over the hyperdrive levers. 

“Yes, Nigel,” Adam answered. The stars stretched as they jumped away. 

===

They left the silence undisturbed during their brief minutes-long emergency jump. Nigel couldn’t even remember where he’d set the jump to take them, but he was satisfied by the empty field of stars that presented itself. The scanners were quiet. Not a soul in sight. 

“Kriff me,” Nigel muttered and let out a deep breath. 

Adam was out of his seat almost instantly, rubbing his hands together, chewing his lip. “We made it, Nigel. I was so afraid at first, so afraid, but then they took you away and I knew I had to do something, so I came up with a plan. It was a scary plan, with only a small chance of success, but I did it anyway, and I wasn’t even afraid as I did it. I’ve never held a blaster, Nigel.” Adam was pacing now, muscles tight, hands jerking as he rubbed them together. 

Nigel couldn’t help but stare at him. “You were amazing, gorgeous. I’ve never kriffing seen anything like you.” 

“They were going to hurt you and I couldn’t let them. I need you. I know a little about the standard-issue Imperial weapons — I’ve studied Imperial tactics for a long time to help me know what to expect from them — and I knew I could get it away from him. They were going to hurt you, Nigel.”

Nigel stood up. “They were going to send you to the kriffing spice mines—“

Adam frowned, like the thought was only just crossing his mind. “I didn’t think about that,” Adam continued, completely frank. “But I know about Imperial torture droids and I couldn’t let them—“ His voice choked off. “I need you, Nigel.” He was trembling like a leaf in the wind. Nigel grasped his shoulders to anchor him. Adam shuddered and stilled. 

“You were amazing,” Nigel whispered. Adam’s smile was fleeting; he pulled in a breath and Nigel could feel the flood of words coming. He loved to hear Adam talk. 

But there was one thing he thought he might love more, if he could work up the nerve to do it. He faltered for just a moment. But if Adam could storm an Imperial shuttle on his own, then Nigel could scrounge up enough courage for this. 

Blink, Nigel told himself. Breathe. Adam’s eyes met his. 

Nigel leaned forward and kissed him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was really excited to write action hero!Adam because the image of Adam walking alone through the snow, going to extreme lengths to find Beth in the end of the movie _Adam_ was something I wanted to see in some form in this fic. Adam moving mountains for people he cares about and can't stand to lose. I NEED IT. 
> 
> Also, THEY KISSED. *throws a party*
> 
> I've been out of town this weekend, so I may be slightly delayed in answering comments as I try to get my schedule back on track, but I'll get to them ASAP! I love reading them, and I can't wait to answer them all. :) I hope you enjoy this chapter!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can see from the chapter count, this is the last chapter of this fic! Before you Force choke me to death, I have a sequel in the works! See the end notes for more info…and please forgive me for springing the end on you. I wasn’t 100% positive that the fic would fit into seven chapters, so I held off on setting a number of chapters. Hopefully the fact that this is a very kiss-y chapter will help you forgive me?? Without further ado, THE KISSING CHAPTER. ENJOY.

Adam’s lips were slack and surprised under Nigel’s. Pressed close against him, Nigel felt more than heard the startled sound that lodged in Adam’s throat. He sounded more surprised than unhappy, but Nigel paused all the same, his lips hovering over Adam’s, waiting for some word or sign. 

Adam’s hand felt like a crushing weight when he pressed it to Nigel’s chest — pushing him away. Nigel’s lungs constricted, all the air squeezed out of them at that gentle, utterly pulverizing touch. 

“I’m sorry, gorgeous,” he said, trying not to sound as hurt as he felt. He pulled back from Adam, and hated the moment he could no longer feel Adam’s trembling breath against his lips.

Adam’s eyes were bright as a nebula when they darted up to Nigel’s for the barest of moments. Nigel, as always, felt seared at the contact. Adam’s eyes traced a path over Nigel’s cheek and down to his lips. His frown was as beautiful as all his expressions, brows drawn together in concentration, those gorgeous lips pressed tight as he swallowed. Nigel was looking hard as he waited for Adam to speak, so he saw the precise moment something loosened and unlocked behind his eyes.

“Oh,” said Adam, soft as a breath of wind. “I’m…I’m _aroused_ ,” he said in amazement. “I didn’t realize…” He trailed off. His hand was warm where it still rested against Nigel’s chest. It was warmer still when he slid it upwards, fingers tightening just slightly at the nape of Nigel’s neck. He pulled Nigel down as he tilted his own face up, and when Nigel kissed Adam for the second time, the pleasant warmth turned into an open flame. 

He kissed Adam again and again, from every angle he could contrive, stroking through his hair and sliding one hand down to his hip to pull him closer. Adam pressed forward eagerly, locking his arms around Nigel’s neck and sighing against his lips before deepening the kiss enough to make Nigel’s brain fill with frantic static. Nigel pulled back to catch his breath out of sheer necessity, but kept both arms firmly around Adam as he rested their foreheads together. Adam’s hand drifted down to Nigel’s collar, half-stroking, half-straightening. 

“Adam,” Nigel whispered. His voice was shaky. Not that he remotely kriffing cared. Adam leaned in, bringing his kiss-swollen lips back into range, and Nigel knew he needed to act quickly if he was going to have a conversation before his brain completely short-circuited. 

“You said you need me,” he forced out. "Why do you need me, Adam?”

Adam looked slightly dazed. “Because you're a pilot,” he started, trailing off as he thought. The ghost of a frown touched his face. Nigel couldn’t resist running his thumb over Adam’s pursed lips. 

“You're a pilot, yourself, gorgeous,” he objected softly.

“You make a good bodyguard,” Adam tried next, the crease between his eyebrows deepening as he considered. He looked stumped, whether by himself or by Nigel, it was hard to say. Regardless, Nigel pressed a kiss to the line of tension on Adam’s forehead. It relaxed slightly under his lips.

“You're too smart to get into any scrapes you can't get out of,” Nigel murmured against his skin. “You just kriffing saved my life back there.” He pulled back to try to catch Adam’s eyes. No eye contact was forthcoming, but Nigel found himself fascinated by the flush spreading over Adam’s cheeks. 

“I like having you around,” Adam said, and his face brightened like he’d just found a new star to add to his star maps. “Especially when you kiss me.” 

Nigel fought the urge to stop all talking for the foreseeable future and kiss Adam senseless. He needed to make sure they understood each other before taking this further. ”That’s a nice kriffing list of facts, Adam, but I need to hear about — kriff me — your feelings.”

"My feelings.” Adam paused for so long that Nigel felt something in his chest crack. Maybe Adam didn’t feel anything for him beyond a physical attraction and the need for someone trustworthy to help him. He wondered if he could bear it if that was the truth. Just the thought of it…

It felt like being back in the deserts of Tatooine with nothing but a crashed ship. 

Nigel shook off his morbid thoughts when Adam suddenly met his gaze — and held it. 

“Emotions are hard to process, Nigel, so I’m sorry if I express myself inadequately. I feel…” He trailed off, considering. “When I thought you might be taken away — that you might die, Nigel, and I might never see you again, that you might burn out like a star at the end of its life without even the residual matter to mark where it once was — I felt something like an explosion. It was pain like I don’t usually feel. Like when I realized that Alderaan was gone…” Adam’s voice choked off, and Nigel gripped his arms tightly. Adam smiled at him, a weak, watery twitch of his lips. “I feel a lot of things for you, Nigel. I knew I cared about you, that you were my friend, but I didn’t realize until just now that I’m aroused by you, too. I think that means I love you. I hope you don't leave, because I would miss you terribly. I don't want you to leave, but I understand that you probably need to. It wasn’t part of our deal for you to kiss me and want to stay with me, and you didn’t know that my planet would be gone when you took this job. I understand that usually no one wants to stay with me long term. It's logical, even if it hurts. I understand all of this...but I don't know what to do.” 

Adam rattled off the list of facts and feelings and Nigel felt like a man staring at a sun and going blind with the light. The word love had been buried in the words pouring from Adam’s amazing mind, and Nigel wanted to stare at that particular sun forever. He lifted his hand and brushed back the curls dangling over Adam’s forehead. Adam closed his eyes at the contact. 

“I know what you should do,” Nigel said, pausing to tug lightly on a lock of Adam’s hair.

“What?” Adam murmured, eyes shut and voice distant. 

Nigel leaned close. “Kiss me,” he answered. 

Adam’s eyes opened, and his expression was incredulous. “That’s not a solution, Nigel,” he protested. He paused and blinked. His eyes flew to Nigel’s. “Wait. Does this mean that you love me?”

Nigel grinned like a kriffing idiot and didn’t care. “Yes, gorgeous, that's what it kriffing means.” 

Adam was pressed against him before Nigel could blink, and his mouth was no longer gentle in its seeking. Nigel struggled not to fall over with his arms suddenly full of Adam. Keeping his body steady was all he could hope for; his heart and mind were already long gone.

===

Nigel wouldn’t have thought there was room in the pilot’s seat for two people, but it turned out that both he and Adam could fit quite well. Of course, the manufacturer probably hadn’t intended for two beings to occupy the chair at once, let alone that one should straddle the other and kiss them until their head was spinning. Adam had Nigel all but pinned underneath him, his hands holding both sides of Nigel’s face as he kissed him deeply and hummed in satisfaction. Nigel hadn’t felt this good in a long, long time. 

There were kriffing _butterflies_ in his stomach, for kriff’s sake.

Nigel grumbled a curse when the chair’s constrictive armrests kept Adam from entirely melting against him, but Adam’s lips distracted him again before he could fully commit to the irritation. He tugged Adam as close as he could, surging up to meet him, intent on exploring just how many points of contact and friction he could manage at the same time…

Adam pulled back, breathing hard. He pressed a quick close-lipped kiss against Nigel’s lips and started to stand up. Nigel pulled him back before he made it a step, and Adam landed in his lap. “Nigel,” Adam chided, but he didn’t attempt to free himself. 

“Leaving me already?” Nigel murmured against his neck. He was very pleased with both Adam’s shiver and the way he leaned back against Nigel’s chest. 

“Leaving you?” Adam echoed, his eyes fixed on the viewport. Nigel followed his gaze to the scattered stars and wondered what patterns he was finding there. What he saw that Nigel couldn’t. “I wouldn’t leave you, Nigel. I might need to go back to my seat, though. I need to talk to you about something and touching you is very distracting.”

“Good,” Nigel said, and pressed a lingering kiss against his throat. 

“I’ve been thinking, Nigel,” Adam said. His breathing was slightly erratic but his focus was as sharp as ever. 

Nigel groaned and dropped his forehead against Adam’s shoulder. “ _That’s_ what you’ve been doing?” he muttered, his voice muffled in Adam’s tunic. Kriff, the kid really _was_ a genius if he could kiss like that and still have room for rational thought. Nigel could barely remember his own name.

“Well, I’ve also been kissing you,” Adam clarified helpfully. Nigel grinned against Adam’s shoulder. He shut his eyes as he listened, concentrating on the vibrations of Adam’s voice and hoping he wouldn’t try to get up anytime soon. Adam spoke in his usual gentle monotone, so it took Nigel’s brain a moment to catch up with his ears when he heard the last kriffing thing he would have expected out of Adam’s mouth. His eyes shot open again and he leaned back enough to see Adam’s face. 

Adam blinked at him with eyes blue enough to give the hottest star a run for its money. “Are you okay, Nigel?” 

“I’m sorry, gorgeous, _what_ were you saying?” 

“I said I’ve been in touch with the Rebellion for quite some time,” Adam repeated. “I knew people, on Alderaan.”

Nigel stared at him for a long moment, and wondered if the universe would ever make sense. “The pacifist planet?” he asked, finally. “You’re telling me they were up to their eyes in the Rebellion?” 

Adam frowned lightly. “Their eyes?”

“They were involved,” Nigel explained, hooking his chin over Adam’s shoulder. Adam leaned his head against Nigel’s with an air of distraction.

“Oh,” he answered, his eyes drifting back to the viewport. “There were several contacts in the government, yes.”

“Kriff me,” Nigel muttered. “The quiet ones. Every time.”

“I have the coordinates for a rendezvous point with a Rebel recruiter,” Adam continued, his voice gathering speed and energy as he went. He was excited about this idea, Nigel realized. “They’ll need to talk to you, run a few checks, but then we can join officially.”

Nigel’s thoughts came to a violent halt faster than a podracer in Beggar’s Canyon. “Join? The _Rebellion_?” 

“That's my plan,” Adam said with a nod. “They always need technology specialists and engineers. It doesn't pay well, but we'll get room and board. They have plenty of use for smugglers, too.”

“Darling—“ Nigel started, but he couldn’t decide how he wanted to finish the sentiment. Adam shifted closer, turning to tuck himself into Nigel’s side. Nigel brushed his lips over his forehead and Adam sighed happily.

“I don’t like nicknames, Nigel,” he said, almost too quiet to be heard. “Except the ones you give me.” Before the clenching of Nigel’s heart could quite translate itself into words, Adam went on. “If you don't want to join, I understand. We can do something else instead. I will need to be involved with the Rebellion somehow, though, because I can't let the Empire do to other planets what they did to Alderaan. I just thought…well, they need engineers to help predict and counter the Empire's weapons, and I'm very qualified for that.”

“You are, gorgeous, you are.” Nigel studied Adam’s face and waited for as much eye contact as Adam would give him. Adam’s eyes hovered somewhere along the bridge of his nose. “This is what you want?” Nigel asked. “To join up with the Rebels and probably get killed for your trouble?”

“There's a high probability of getting killed anywhere in the galaxy right now,” Adam answered. “Because there's a war. I'd rather die helping than die running away.” A slightly hollow note had crept into his voice and Nigel as though the air had been pulled from his lungs. He tightened his grip on Adam. 

“Sometimes I think you're the only person who makes sense in this galaxy, Adam.” 

Adam finally looked at him. His eyes lit up in all sorts of beautiful, distracting ways when he smiled, and Nigel couldn’t wait to familiarize himself with each variation. 

“That's not a common opinion,” Adam answered quietly. “Most people think I don’t make sense at all.”

“Then most people are kriffing idiots. Let’s go, gorgeous,” Nigel said, and wondered when he’d lost his mind and why it felt so good to go crazy. “Let’s join the kriffing Rebellion.” 

Adam smiled, wide and beautiful. “Thank you, Nigel.” 

Nigel watched in rapt fascination as Adam’s eyes fell to his lips. A blush painted its way over Adam’s cheeks. “We don’t have to leave right away,” Adam suggested, and leaned in to kiss the grin off Nigel’s face. 

=== 

“Nigel,” Adam scolded, “I’m trying to concentrate.” 

Nigel thought it was incredibly unfair for Adam to stand right in front of the nav computer — right in front of Nigel, and well within range of his roaming hands — and expect him to keep his hands to himself. Adam tapped away at the blue glow of the screen, his face creased with concentration as he input the coordinates for their jump. Nigel scowled, but kept his pawing to a minimum. 

“I thought you were good at multitasking,” he complained. “Since apparently you can kiss me within an inch of my life and plot to join the Rebellion at the same time.”

“That was a special case,” Adam answered as though it was the most obvious thing in the galaxy. He gently removed Nigel’s hand from his hip. “Now keep your hands in your lap until I’m done.” 

Nigel obeyed, but not without a steady stream of grumbling. His eyes wandered around the cockpit he’d first seen not so long ago. There was history in the old paneling, order and progress in the updated consoles and lights and furnishings. Old and new, blended seamlessly in efficient, functional beauty. He thought of the silver and white galley, the orderly arrangement of provisions on the shelves. The muted light of the sleeping quarters with their curved walls and soft colors. Adam was everywhere in this ship. 

“Done,” said Adam, and turned to drop a kiss against Nigel’s lips before slipping away to the co-pilot’s seat. Nigel missed him even across so small a distance. He was kriffing doomed when it came to this kid. 

Adam buckled his safety belt. 

“Alright, Nigel,” he said. 

Nigel blinked and forced himself to focus on the nav computer and the lines of coordinates waiting there. He initiated the jump sequence; the _Stargazer_ vibrated around him as the ion engines rumbled to life. The screen in front of him flashed green and Nigel reached for the hyperdrive levers. 

“You could have died.” Adam said, sudden and soft. His face was pensive. “When you said you were a smuggler so they would let me go.”

Nigel’s hand fell away from the levers and rested against the cool durasteel of the instrument panel instead. With it’s twinkling array of lights, it resembled a canopy of stars in shades of red, blue, yellow, and white. He studied the mingled glow. 

“It would have been kriffing worth it,” he said at last, and meant it down to his bones. 

“You risked your life to save me. That's not standard behavior to strangers.”

“You're not a kriffing stranger, Adam.” 

There was an odd expression on Adam’s face when Nigel looked at him, almost like the expression he wore in the moments just before clapping his hands over his ears to block out excessive stimuli. Worry blossomed in Nigel’s chest. 

“Because you love me,” Adam whispered. His pensive look melted into a warm smile and a flash of eye contact that ended much too soon for Nigel’s liking. He wondered whether Adam might look at him more often the more time they spent together. Whether he would hold his gaze for longer as he grew more certain of their connection. 

Whether they might eventually be more like one person instead of two.

“I still think love isn't quantifiable,” Adam murmured, his eyes drifting, as always, to the stars. A smile hovered over his lips. “But in your case, it's only because there's no scale that could contain it. You're off the charts, Nigel.” 

Nigel snorted a laugh. “Is that a good thing?”

“I like it.” Adam spoke without a trace of irony and Nigel could have kissed him for it. He would, later. 

“Then it's a very good thing,” Nigel said with a grin and no small amount of conviction. “You ready for this, gorgeous?” 

The words left his lips before he was entirely sure what he meant. Ready for this jump? Ready to join the Rebellion and be branded a traitor? 

Ready for this life, together?

“I’m ready,” Adam answered without hesitation. Maybe Nigel was imagining things, but he felt sure Adam was answering all his questions at once. 

Adam glanced down at his safety belt and frowned. “I would rather sit with you during the jump,” he said, “but these seats aren’t built to safely accommodate two people.”

“We managed just fine a minute ago,” Nigel pointed out, trying and failing to stifle his smug grin. 

“That wouldn’t be safe while jumping to hyperspace, Nigel,” Adam chided him, a strong note of disapproval in his voice. But he looked crestfallen. Nigel enjoyed the look far too much. 

“Whatever you say, gorgeous.” 

“I’ll sit with you once we’re safely in Hyperspace,” Adam decided, and instantly perked up again. “It’s a long flight, Nigel.” 

Always something to look forward to. Nigel grinned. 

“In that case, we’d better get a move on,” he declared, and gripped the hyperdrive levers. He hadn’t been with this ship for very long, all things considered, but they felt perfectly natural under his fingers, as though they’d been molded to fit his hand — or his hand had molded to fit them. Maybe it was some combination of the two. Nigel pulled the levers, firing the engines with one smooth motion. 

The stars stretched and tunneled around them as they raced toward their future at the speed of light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SPACEDOGS IN ACTUAL SPACE IS MY FAVORITE THING. *weeps* In fact, I loved it so much that I was hit by inspiration for a sequel, tentatively titled “The Law of Gravity.” It would feature things like Adam and Nigel in the Rebellion! Princess Leia! Secret, dangerous missions! Trying to help Harlan (who is still being detained on Tatooine, poor guy)! An appearance by Adam’s Alderaanian ex-girlfriend Beth! And possibly some clarification about what exactly Adam was doing on Tatooine in the first place… 
> 
> Also, I am very aware of the fact that Adam’s entire planet was just blown up...and yet here he is making out with Nigel. Besides factors like shock, delayed reaction to grief, and adrenaline, I would point out that after an initial outburst, Adam seems to snap back to functionality very quickly after severe emotional blows. Case in point: the death of his father. In the movie, Adam marks him out of the chore chart and moves on. This level of compartmentalization might be problematic long term, another thing that might just pop up in the sequel...
> 
> So the sequel is a thing that might be happening, if anyone’s interested. Let me know! This story has been TOO MUCH FUN to write. Seriously. How is it so much fun to make up stories about characters from two unrelated movies shoved into a completely separate fantasy universe in space? This should be ridiculous? But I love it??? Thanks so much to everybody who’s come along for this ride with me. Your comments have meant the world. They inspired me to finish writing this fic in the first place, and then to start sketching out a sequel. I kriffing love you all. <3

**Author's Note:**

> This crossover AU of a crossover AU might be the most insane premise I've ever written, lol. I hate to be That Author who says "review and I'll continue," but I would really like to know if anyone enjoyed this idea...so I can decide whether I've gone one AU too far over the deep end. ;) This was lots of fun to write, so no regrets, either way. Spacedogs is amazing in any universe, it turns out. I've got the rest of the fic outlined, I love playing in the Star Wars universe, and Spacedogs is my favorite thing, so I'm excited to go on if anybody wants to continue into this insanity with me. Let me know? 
> 
> Happy Spacedogs summer!


End file.
